Description: Challenge to a climate resiliency project in lower Manhattan that would require demolition and rebuilding of an existing park.
-
Battery Park City Neighborhood Association v. Battery Park City Authority
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 02/16/2023 Notice of Voluntary Dismissal Download Notice of voluntary discontinuance filed. Petitioners Dismissed Their Challenge to Lower Manhattan Resiliency Project After Court Denied Preliminary Injunction. Eight days after a New York court denied a request for a preliminary injunction blocking part of a resiliency project in Battery Park City in lower Manhattan, the petitioners voluntarily discontinued and dismissed their action and all claims. 02/08/2023 Decision Download Motion for preliminary injunction denied. Court Denied Preliminary Injunction. A New York court denied a request for a preliminary injunction blocking part of a resiliency project in Battery Park City in lower Manhattan. The court found that the petitioners did not establish a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act. The court stated that in the absence of a showing of an arbitrary and capricious process, it was required to defer to the Battery Park City Authority’s (BPCA’s) determination regarding the design standards for coastal resiliency projects intended to provide flood protection. The court also found that equities favored BPCA because a delay in the project would impose significant cost on BPCA, which had spent years on planning and design. The court further found that the petitioners would not suffer irreparable harm, noting that the project was a “public benefit project meant to protect Lower Manhattan from future storm surge and sea level rise” and that the “parties simply differ on the best way to accomplish” the goal of ensuring that a park that would be rebuilt as part of the project could be enjoyed by future generations. The court also rejected a contention that loss of trees would constitute irreparable harm, noting that there would be a net increase in trees in the project area as a result of the project. 01/27/2023 Reply Download Reply memorandum of law filed in further support of Article 78 petition and for preliminary injunction. 01/13/2023 Opposition Download Memorandum of law filed by respondent in opposition to petitioners' motion for preliminary injunction. 12/14/2022 Memorandum of Law Download Memorandum of law filed in support of Article 78 petition and for preliminary injunction. 12/14/2022 Petition Download Petition filed. Lawsuit Challenged Lower Manhattan Resiliency Project that Would Demolish and Rebuild Park. A neighborhood group and individual resident of Battery Park City in lower Manhattan filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court challenging the Battery Park City Authority’s (BPCA’s) approval of a plan that would, as part of a climate resiliency project, demolish an existing park at the southern tip of Manhattan and construct a buried floodwall and reconstruct an elevated park. The petitioners alleged that BPCA based its rejection of an alternative resiliency plan based on unreasonable and incorrect assumptions about storm surge, sea level rise, and wave action. They asserted that BPCA had violated the State Environmental Quality Review Act. They sought a preliminary injunction, arguing that the community would suffer irreparable harm from the existing park’s closure and demolition.