Right out of the gate, justices had a few questions for the lawyers petitioning the State Supreme Court in a hearing Monday morning to block eminent domain for Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn.
"Can we really determine that in this framework?" interjected Justice Reinaldo Rivera, just barely after Jennifer Levy, an attorney representing a plaintiffs' group of businesses and individuals, mentioned the state's condemnation of the area in question.
"This is not an argument about the act of condemning," she replied. Instead, this part of the legal offensive against Bruce Ratner's project was more about process: Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn argues that the Empire State Development Corporation should have evaluated the private benefit to Forest City before handing over the land, and also that the $100 million in state funding requires any housing built as part of the plan to be reserved for low-income residents. read more »
