History and Review
Community Plan
In 1991 a community plan was passed into law, that prevented development of tall buildings along the Brooklyn Botanic Garden “BBG“, to protect the community and the BBG. Three sites were identified as A, B, C with height limits of 60/70 feet.
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 However, the community residents pushed back against the request and it was rescinded. Another request passed in 2015, which is currently at the appeals court waiting to be heard.
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 Laurie 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 April 2018, 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.
We obtained a Temporary Restraining Order “TRO” preventing the developers from laying any concrete and then another specifically stating that no disturbance of the soil.
However, instead of dealing with the “merits” of the case, (the reason for the lawsuit) for the last ten months we have been fighting to keep the case alive along with fighting several scams that the developers and the City have been engaged in to get around the lawsuit by breaking the TRO.
The Developers and the City have made serious accusations that our case should be dismissed because Cornell Realty is was not the owner of the application (despite their name being on the application) and Cornell no longer own any of the properties, (despite the fact that they never owned any of the properties, either before, during or after the rezoning).
There was also the issue that we didn’t serve the developers with the legal papers, despite the attorney, who got the papers writing a letter that we did.
In the meantime as we are wasting time on these issues, 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 are demanding that both Civil and Criminal Charges be brought against the City and The Developers for violating the TRO.
Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Cornell’s Motion to Dismiss
Petitioners Response in Further Support for Discovery and to Amend Caption