By Ryan Thompson
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — It is very possible that the New York State Court of Appeals will issue its decision on the constitutionality of eminent domain at Atlantic Yards Monday or Tuesday.

Gary Spencer, the public information officer for the state’s high court, said that decisions on cases with the Court of Appeals will be handed down Monday and Tuesday, and then on the following Tuesday, Dec. 1. However, he did not say whether the Atlantic Yards decision would be included in these. If not, the court will resume session in mid-December.

There has been much speculation that the ruling would be made before Thanksgiving, which is Thursday, but the Court of Appeals has not said anything to that effect.

If the appeal filed by landowners is successful, the plan for Atlantic Yards will either have to be entirely abandoned or dramatically redesigned, which would likely take years.

If the appeal fails, then the state will go forward with taking title of the land through a court proceeding in Brooklyn Supreme Court, which Atlantic Yards opponents will also challenge. If the state is ultimately successful, it will then lease the land to Ratner for a nominal fee, such as $1.

Ratner, however, will still have to fight the myriad of lawsuits that have been filed against his planned 22-acre project, which is expected to bring the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn.

On Thursday, another lawsuit was filed, making it the third in less than 40 days.

This latest lawsuit, which challenges the project’s approval process, comes at a time when both sides of the legal controversy are eagerly awaiting the state’s high court to rule on the most important issue of all the cases — whether the state acted unconstitutionally in exercising eminent domain over property owners whose land sits in the proposed footprint of the Atlantic Yards basketball arena.

Thursday’s lawsuit, unlike most of the others, was filed by a new set of plaintiffs, including state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, state Assemblyman Jim Brennan, City Councilwoman Letitia James, as well as the Brooklyn Heights Association.

“The suit contends that the plan was approved without sufficient study of the impacts of its extended construction schedule and completion risks,� stated the press release sent out by BrooklynSpeaks. “It also alleges that the [Empire State Development Corporation] ESDC has illegally delegated to [Forest City Ratner Companies] FCRC much of its governmental power to determine the future content and configuration of the project.�

BrooklynSpeaks, an initiative consisting of various community groups that oppose the current plan for Atlantic Yards, reported Thursday that the plaintiffs and their supporters assembled together on the steps of City Hall to announce the filing of the lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court.

“Atlantic Yards is a terrible project — out of place, outsized and out of bounds. It represents one more cynical partnership between government, which is supposed to serve the public interest but doesn’t, and the powerful New York City development community, which serves its own,� said plaintiffs’ attorney Albert Butzel. “This lawsuit challenges that incestuous arrangement and seeks to give the impacted communities an opportunity to participate in the planning for Atlantic Yards and help determine their own future.�

Jo Anne Simon, of the Boerum Hill Association, said, “The ESDC has been singularly unable to follow through on its basic governmental obligations — and its commitments to the public — to provide transparency and oversight to the largest single-source development project in the city’s history. We have no alternative other than to bring suit in order to require a valid assessment of the long-term impacts of Atlantic Yards before further irreversible action is taken.�

The lawsuit is the latest in a long line of litigation, nearly all of which has been decided in favor of Ratner and Atlantic Yards.

In October, just one day before the Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Albany on the eminent domain case, the longtime lead opponent, community group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), and its allies sued the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to overturn its vote to agree to sell the site’s railyards to Ratner for $100 million.

Less than a week later, DDDB and 19 other community groups filed suit seeking to “annul the ESDC’s findings under New York state’s environmental laws.� According to DDDB, the lawsuit claimed that the ESDC had abandoned the statutorily mandated purpose of removing “blight� from the planned area of Atlantic Yards; that it no longer will guarantee affordable housing as promised in the project’s plan; and that it is illegally circumventing the need for a supplemental environmental impact statement.

“Victory by the petitioners would doom the besieged development plan,� stated DDDB.

However, considering the expansive amount of litigation that is pending and the additional lawsuits that could come, many wonder if Atlantic Yards will ever happen, even if all the lawsuits fail.

Earlier this year, DDDB’s legal director told the Eagle that DDDB and its supporters had about a half-dozen potential lawsuits they could file in addition to the various lawsuits that were already pending over the Atlantic Yards project.

“Can we bring other challenges? Absolutely. And we will,� Candace Carponter had said. “It just depends on who’s got more stamina.�

Upon the initial announcement of the project, Ratner had said that the “Brooklyn� Nets would be playing in the Atlantic Yards arena beginning in 2006.

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