COURIER L 4 IFE, MARCH 13-19, 2020
Digging in!
Judge orders C’ Heights developers to
restore disturbed dirt on contested site
Alicia Boyd and MTOPP members at Brooklyn Supreme Court. Photo by Ben Verde
BY BEN VERDE
Talk about dirty work!
A Brooklyn Supreme Court
Judge ordered the developers of a
contested Crown Heights project
to restore all of the dirt they’ve already
excavated from the Carroll
Street site, after checking out the
site himself.
“Go out and correct that mistake,
restore the dirt,” Judge Reginald
Boddie told representatives of
Carroll Plaza Development at an
emergency hearing on Thursday.
The site, along with other sites
in Crown Heights affected by a 2018
rezoning, has been under a temporary
restraining order since April
2019 that prohibits the disturbance
of soil or the pouring of concrete,
after neighborhood activists sued
the city claiming they failed to conduct
an adequate environmental review
process prior to approving the
rezoning.
The soil was excavated while
the restraining order was in place,
which lawyers for the developers
claimed happened because builders
did not know the restraining order
applied to them.
After the petitioners in the case
alerted the judge to activity at the
site between Franklin and Washington
Avenues that they deemed
suspicious, he took a trip to the site
himself on Wednesday where he
said he saw “more than a little bit”
of extracted dirt.
The judge also revoked the developer’s
work permits, making any
activity at the sites illegal, other
than restoring the dirt.
Boddie originally demanded that
developers restore the contested
dirt by no later than March 10 at 5
pm. However, a lawyer for the developers
explained that it would
be impossible to secure the necessary
certification to introduce new
soil to the site under environmental
regulations, prompting Boddie to
extend the deadline to March 12.
Activists celebrated the decision,
saying the decision marked a turning
point against the development.
“We are absolutely thrilled over
the fact that the court is finally taking
a stand with these developers
and saying enough is enough,” said
anti-gentrification advocate Alicia
Boyd, who is representing herself
in the case against the city. Boyd
also lauded Boddie’s visit to the
site. “You got your 25 lawyers all
showing up and saying things but
the evidence is sitting right there
in front of you.”
Boyd and other activists have
charged that the buildings along
the swath of rezoned land would
harm plant life at the nearby Brooklyn
Botanic Garden, but the garden
has not taken a public stance on any
of those developments and maintains
that the proposed mega-development
at 960 Franklin Avenue is
the only project it opposes.
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