Local Lawyers Fight Atlantic Yards Project As 'Own Law Firm'
Thomas Adcock. 06-08-2007

Something about Brooklyn evokes the visceral among natives and newcomers alike. Of late, this includes dozens of resident lawyers personally affected by the prospect of their leafy neighborhoods falling victim to what they call "Manhattanization."

Beyond such a fate, the resident lawyers claim their concerns, and those of their non-lawyer neighbors, have been largely ignored by key politicians and Forest City Ratner Companies in moving forward on the largest single-design development project in the history of New York City - the 22-acre Atlantic Yards site near downtown Brooklyn, at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues.

Under the leadership of Candace Carponter, a Manhattan solo practitioner who lives in Park Slope, some 30 of her neighbors/attorneys have formed the legal committee of Develop-Don't Destroy Brooklyn, the principal opposition group to Forest City Ratner's plan. The committee assists retained counsel in fighting the developer in federal and state courts.
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Meanwhile, Ms. Carponter and others on the committee hold out hope for victory before Justice Joan Madden in the Manhattan Supreme Court matter of DDDB v. ESDC, 104597, an Article 78 proceeding seeking to annul the Empire State Development Corporation's approval of the Atlantic Yard's environmental impact statement.

Funds for constitutional and environmental litigators hired at reduced rates by Develop-Don't Destroy were generated from bake sales and stoop sales, as well as walk-a-thon pledges and audience donations at screenings of an anti-Forest City Ratner documentary, "Brooklyn Matters." Matthew D. Brinckerhoff and Andrew G. Celli Jr. of Emery Celli Brinckherhoff represents the group in the federal matter; Jeffrey S. Baker of the Albany-based Young Sommer Ward Ritzenberg Baker & Moore in the state matter.

Ms. Carponter said the legal committee "operates as our own law firm, basically, and what we're basically fighting is powerful government and rich folks run amok."
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Mr. Baker, who two years ago thwarted plans by a Montreal cement company to construct a $353 million coal-fired plant on the riverfront of upstate Hudson (NYLJ, May 6, 2005), said the legal committee helped with research, leg work, drafting and "the most important thing - translating to lay people in the community what we're doing, and how the legal process works with the political process."
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A Change of Heart
"Being a basketball fan, it sounded pretty good to me back in December '03," said Troy Selvaratnam, a Boerum Hill resident. "But as I read more about it, it became clear to me that this was a bad deal, an absolute abuse of democratic power and circumvention of process."

In 2003, Mr. Selvaratnam was an Eastern District court attorney. A former associate at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, he is now in-house counsel for a media company he declined to identify. He is active with the legal committee opposed to Forest City Ratner.

"There's an extraordinary brain trust in this area - urban planners, environmentalists, lawyers, you name it. The fact that we weren't involved in the discourse was insulting," said Mr. Selvaratnam. "If they'd just not been so insulting, our activism could have been assuaged."

But Loren Riegelhaupt, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner, said the developer held "hundreds of meetings" with the community.

"Not everyone is going to agree with us," he said. "But we've tried very, very hard to be as amenable and as open to the community as we possibly can."

Mr. Selvaratnum and his committee colleagues complain about the ultimate Albany green light from the little-known Public Authorities Control Board, which consists of three members: the governor and majority leaders of the Assembly and Senate. The project had first won approval from the Empire State Development Corporation - in part due to the efforts of outside counsel David Paget of Sive, Paget & Riesel, whose firm also represented Forest City Ratner on the same matter.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead ruled favorably on a committee lawsuit claiming Mr. Paget's conflict of interest, declaring a "severe, crippling appearance of impropriety."

Forest City Ratner appealed, claiming that Atlantic Yards could not win approval of its environmental impact statement without the specific expertise of Mr. Paget. In May 2006, Justice Milton Williams of the Appellate Division, First Department, wrote a majority opinion reversing Justice Edmead.
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"There is general outrage about how this project was shoved down our throats," said attorney Randall L. Rasey, a commercial litigation associate at Barton Barton & Plotkin who has lived in Fort Greene since 2002 after many years in Manhattan. "We need development, but they've shut out the community from the development process. We've come up with alternative plans and proposals, but they don't listen."

He added, "I'm conservative at heart. I'm always leery of knee-jerk radicals. When I first heard about [Develop-Don't Destroy], I expected to see a bunch of over-aged hippies. But these people are really together, and they've done the economic analysis and come up with alternatives. We're not just naysayers."
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Ms. Carponter said she and her fellow "eternal optimists" anticipate raising another $1 million or so to battle another day.

Full article. New York Law Journal