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 March 18, 2000 |
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Rebuffed by RIOC, RIRA May Piggyback on Existing Legal Actions Against Southtown Plan The Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) may participate in the trial of existing legal actions against the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) over its approved plan for Southtown. The RIOC plan would put buildings on land RIRA says is reserved for a park or a community commons. The existing cases were brought by Attorney Robert Chira, a Rivercross resident, on behalf of the Alternative Southtown Design Committee, and by Roosevelt Islanders for Responsible Southtown Development (RIRSD), a new resident group formed in December when it became clear RIRA would not take legal action on Southtown before a four-month deadline would expire. "If RIOC refuses to listen to RIRA's position and adhere to the GDP [General Development Plan], then we will issue a letter of intent to sue and prepare to intervene on the pending lawsuits," said Joan Christianson, RIRA First Vice President, in a statement read to members of RIRA's Common Council last week. RIRA had earlier based its hopes to save the parkland on a discovery by Karen Stewart (whose husband is RIRA President and RIOC Board member Patrick Stewart) that the City Board of Estimate had formally turned down a 1990 RIOC request to reduce the park from "approximately six acres" to three acres. But RIRA's stance on the six-acre question has already been rejected by RIOC. Its outside Counsel, Stephen Kass of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, says the reduction to three acres was a de facto change even before RIOC's 1990 proposal. The RIOC argument apparently will be that Eastwood and Rivercross were overbuilt onto the designated open space (which Christianson's statement acknowledges), producing a fait accompli reduction of the planned park space - a reduction which then needed no after-the-fact approval by the City. Thus, the legal tug-of-war could center on whether the overbuilding of Northtown reduced the parkland or reduced Southtown by effectively transferring Southtown development acreage to Northtown. Because the City's refusal to reduce the parkland from six to three acres came in 1990, long after the overbuilding of Northtown, attorneys fighting reduction of the park are likely to argue that the Board of Estimate's 1990 decision made clear its intention to keep the park between Northtown and Southtown at six acres. But Christianson's statement suggests that RIRA has another "magic bullet" or "smoking gun" available to win its case. Christianson did not provide details on that to members of the Council, telling them, "It is so critical that none of it get back to RIOC that I am going to ask you not to ask." Designated Southtown developers Hudson and Related have also engaged legal counsel in the cases. He is David Paget of Sive, Paget & Riesel. Both the Chira suit and the RIRSD suit were filed in January, within the four-month window imposed by State law, leading RIRA President Patrick Stewart to condemn the RIRSD action as "drama concocted out of misinformation and distortion" in a January WIRE column. With the six-acre matter apparently in mind, Stewart continued, "We are working on a solution that will be far more effective, and far less costly... We will... accomplish a great deal more than [RIRSD] could ever do." RIRA's present options appear to be:
Chira's action opposes Southtown on much the same grounds as the RIRSD suit. The recitation of facts in his filing suggests RIOC misled the community with claims that "nothing is cast in stone" long after environmental consultants were asked to provide justification for doing no new environmental assessment for the April 1999 plan - a request that meant the plan was effectively final. Legal experts who have looked at the cases say Justice Stanley Parness of the State Supreme Court is likely to combine them for trial.
The Residents Association's potential intervention raises the potential of competing fund-raising by RIRA and RIRSD, both of which have gone to the community for the money to foot the lawyers' bills. Both groups have existing war chests, but legal actions consume funds at an alarming rate, so further fund-raising is probably inevitable. RIRA's legal fund-raising goes back to April and May, responding to various RIOC development proposals, including the plan for a twin-tower hotel at Southpoint. Residents contributed an immediate $10,000 in cash and pledges, but the organization's efforts to raise funds has since stalled. As recently as March 8, only about a third of the Common Council - which voted unanimously to create the fund - had contributed to it. RIRA's legal funds have been used for payment of a monthly retainer to DeForest & Duer. However, the firm's attention to approval of the Southtown plan was delayed in a misunderstanding: While the RIRA Common Council had approved the retainer for advice on all Island development, for a time the law firm was under the impression that its mandate concerned only Southpoint. [Southpoint is the Island's southernmost 10 acres. Acreage designated for Southtown lies north of the Tram station. The land in dispute in the legal actions is approximately the area occupied by the soccer/baseball field just north of the abandoned Nurses Residence. The developers have proposed a replacement soccer field just north of the Queensboro Bridge, near the Island's east shore.] Depending on the course of legal events and the judge's procedural decisions, estimates are that each of the Islanders' suits could cost as much as $30,000 to $50,000, given that appeals are likely. Southtown construction is sure to be delayed at least until July, but it's also possible that, with appeals, years could elapse before ground is broken. Arguments in the Southtown cases are scheduled to start in May.
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