Holding On By A Thread!!

Developers Buy Land In Anticipation of Rezoning!
In 2014 Cornell Realty  began buying up properties within sites A, B, and Continuum brought site C.  At the same time a request was submitted to the Department of City Planning “DCP” to rezone all along the BBG and Prospect Park, by Community Board 9.  However, the community residents pushed back against the request and it was rescinded.  

If this rezoning request had been process, then the land along BBG would have been rezoned under a community plan, but because of community resistance, DCP has been powerless to move forward with a district wide rezoning.  As a result the owners of the properties have decided to place private applications to rezone with DCP.

In 2017 Cornell submitted a rezoning application for sites A, and B, but withdrew it when the local Councilperson Laurie Cumbo refused to entertain this application because she was facing a serious challenge to her seat and didn’t want another controversial rezoning plan to occur.  

After Cumbo won her re-election campaign, Cornell resubmitted its application and got Cumbo’s approval and thus the City Council’s approval, in December of 2018, based upon a “Miracle Deal” of affordable housing, which never existed. In 2022, Cumbo was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams as Commissioner for NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs

In April 2019, we filed a lawsuit against the City and Developer, stating that the City failed to conduct its environmental review lawfully and the Developers lied on their application to avoid looking at environmental consequences.

During the course of the lawsuit, the City has been planning and scheming with the Developers, granting them permits to violate the TRO under an voluntary environmental clean up program and an  old permit that was issued in 2015 under the old zoning regulations.  This has resulted in five people being arrested.

As a result  we demanded that both Civil and Criminal Charges be brought against the City and The Developers for violating the TRO.

In December of 2020, after almost a 2 year fight, we won the case on the merits.  Mr. Carone from Abrams and Fensterman was the lead attorney for Cornell Developers.  Mr. Carone currently is Mayor Eric Adams, right hand man, holding the position of Chief of Staff and was instrumental in supporting Eric Adams bid for Mayor.

Judge Boddie null and voided the Franklin Ave Rezoning application agreeing with the fact that they had not conducted a proper environmental review process as is required by law.

Judge Boddie agreed with us that the Department of City Planning had behaved arbitrarily and capriciously by not ensuring that Cornell took a “hard look” at the water and sewage negative environment impacts, which is based upon the State’s Environmental Laws.  The developers had “played” with the number of residential units and thus avoided their legal responsibility.  They reported that the rezoning (three full city blocks) would only produce about 250 additional apartments when in fact they had submitted building plans that called for 580 units. 

Just recently the developers violated the law for the third time, by attempting to build with a permit that was unlawful, despite the fact that the zoning was null and void.  We went back in front of Judge Boddie.  The Department of Buildings stated they made an “error” with the building permit and thus voided it (after we appeared in Court), and the developers closed up the site with no further construction.

Further Update:
The Developers filed for an expedited hearing process with the Appellate Division 2nd Department, which was granted allowing their appeal to be heard a lot faster than others.  They claimed they needed this development project to help with the housing crisis.  However, we had to filed three motions to get them to comply with the requirement of producing all evidence including transcripts with their appeal.  They refused to submit transcripts, documents and even removed key pages of documents (tampering) within documents which proved our case in the lower court.

Without these essential documents and transcripts our case would have been damaged and we would not have been able to prove what we had done in the lower court that got our win.  These motions that we had to file, made the completed appeal process longer than normal time, thus the expedited process was forgone due to their intentional actions to sabotage the record. 

In the end they produced eight volumes of evidence, including transcripts, orders and temporary orders.  Each volume was approximately 500 pages, making the record from the lower court over 40,000 pages.  We worked hard to win this case and we are eternally grateful to your continued support.

On October we held our hearing on this case in front of the 2nd Department.  It appeared unlike the other cases that no hard questions were asked to the City or the Developer, in fact they had lawyers who could not even answer the Justices questions because they did not know the facts of the case.  At the end Alicia Boyd, who was representing us got a standing ovation for her work.  It was truly impressive and a sight to see.

However, despite this performance and the evidence being in our favor, the 2nd Department on November 9, 2022, came back with a decision that based upon the evidence and the law that Judge Boddie’s decision to null and void the Franklin Ave rezoning should be reversed. 

We filed a month later, a motion to appeal to the Court of Appeals returnable on December 27, 2022 and we filed an temporary restraining order to prevent any development from occurring while the case is being considered for appeal.  However that order was not signed, with no explanation as to why. 

This is the End!

This is truly the last legal step of this case.  We showed that the developers had violated State Law by not looking at negative environmental consequences and the City failed in their responsibilities to ensure that they did.

We showed the Court of Appeals that if the 2nd Department’s decision is upheld that it will weaken the environmental review process and herald in a case of pure corruption as developers downplay what they can build (DUF 1,000) and then once a rezoning is accomplished they can build to the maximum the law allows (DUF 680).

Thus, this case will have far reaching consequences than just the negative impacts that will occur to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the community.

If our case is accepted we will have to write a brief and submit it. There are no oral arguments and everything would be decided on the papers submitted. 

Whatever way it goes we will keep you informed. And we continue to thank you for all of your support, commitment and your continued belief in justice and the courts.