http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...FREE/903129976
Companies sue to stop city’s Willets Point remake
Some two dozen industrial businesses still toughing it out in Iron Triangle ask state’s high court to block fancy redevelopment of site near new Citi Field.
In their latest attempt to thwart the Bloomberg administration’s plans to redevelop Willets Point, more than 20 Iron Triangle business owners filed suit Wednesday in state Supreme Court challenging the city’s environmental review of the area.
The suit alleges the city’s environmental impact statement falls short of requirements under state law, especially regarding the project’s potential effects on local traffic. It also contends Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber’s office does not have the authority to play a lead role on the project. And it argues the city’s plans for the area are too vague to serve as a justification for the use of eminent domain.
Manhattan attorney Michael Gerrard lodged the appeal, known as an Article 78 petition, on behalf of 22 members of the group Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain Abuse.
“We are confident that the courts will dismiss the findings of the environmental review,” says Jerry Antonacci, the group’s president and the owner of Crown Container. “The city council’s November 2008 vote authorizing the redevelopment will be rendered null and void.”
The city’s plan for the gritty 61-acre industrial area adjacent to the new Citi Field baseball park calls for apartments, a hotel, stores, a convention center, a school, offices and parkland. A developer has yet to be chosen.
Many of the area’s largest business owners reached agreements to sell their land to the city prior to last fall’s council vote, but some holdouts remain among the smaller owners.
A spokesman for the mayor’s office referred calls to the city’s Law Department. A spokeswoman there said the department has just received the official court papers and is reviewing them.