Brooklyn’s controversial Atlantic Yards development must undergo further environmental review in light of delays that have pushed the project’s expected completion date from 2019 to 2035. A unanimous April 12 ruling by the Appellate Division, First Department, affirmed a July 2011 decision by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman (See Profile), who ordered the Empire State Development Corp. (ESDC), the public authority overseeing the project, to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement for the new schedule (NYLJ, July 15, 2011). “We agree with Supreme Court that ESDC’s use of a 10-year build date under these circumstances lacks a rational basis and is arbitrary and capricious,” the panel wrote.
Although the ESDC prepared a memorandum looking at the effects of the delay, it “contained no comparison of the environmental impacts of ‘intense’ construction over a 10-year period with the environmental impacts of construction that continues for 25 years,” wrote the panel of Justices Angela Mazzarelli (See Profile), David Friedman (See Profile), Rolando Acosta (See Profile), Helen Freedman (See Profile) and Sheila Abdus-Salaam (See Profile).
