Ikea Court Case

Though we're not involved in the Brooklyn Ikea fight, we've been following it closely and want to alert you to this:

PRESS ADVISORY:
PLAINTIFFS TO ARGUE CASE AGAINST ILLEGAL
IKEA-RED HOOK LAND GRAB:
NEW YORK STATE SUPREME COURT, THURSDAY, MAY 26, AT 11AM

NEW YORK, May 24, 2005. On Thursday morning, May 26, 2005, at 11am, attorney Antonia Bryson of the Urban Environmental Law Center will argue diverse individual and business Brooklyn plaintiffs' challenge to the proposed tax-subsidized 22-acre Ikea-Red Hook project before the New York State Supreme Court, 111 Centre Street, Manhattan, Part 44, Room 581. Plaintiffs are seeking to annul and vacate the Environmental Impact Statement and the City Planning Commission and City Council approvals of the project.

Plaintiffs argue, first, that when the municipal defendants City Planning Commission and New York City Council voted to turn over the Brooklyn waterfront to Ikea in October of 2004, they illegally failed to acknowledge New York City's own master plan for the Red Hook waterfront. This is a violation of the principles undergirding the authority of New York City to engage in zoning. Second, when the Commission and the Council rubber-stamped the Ikea defendants' Final Environmental Impact Statement they failed to take the "close look" that the law requires.

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