{"id":2651,"date":"2011-04-28T14:44:48","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T14:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=2651"},"modified":"2011-04-28T15:19:35","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T15:19:35","slug":"conservation-controversy-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=2651","title":{"rendered":"Conservation controversy: USA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A US Court has upheld \u2018conservancy\u2019 on Tobacco Warehouse, and dismissed NPS, State and City Arguments as, in a sweeping decision, United States District Judge Eric N. Vitaliano ruled that the\u00a0National Park Service\u00a0(\u2018NPS\u2019) violated federal law by removing two historic landmarks from federally protected parkland.<\/span><\/p>\n

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With this decision granting a\u00a0preliminary injunction, the Court ordered NPS to protect these Civil-War era structures \u2013 the Tobacco Warehouse and the Empire Stores \u2013 from the current development plans of the\u00a0Bloomberg Administration.\u00a0\u00a0The decision follows a hearing held in\u00a0Brooklyn Federal Court\u00a0on March 21, 2011.<\/p>\n

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The lawsuit was filed by the\u00a0Brooklyn Heights Association, the\u00a0Fulton Ferry Landing Association, the\u00a0New York Landmarks Conservancy, and the\u00a0Preservation League of New York State (together, \u2018Plaintiffs\u2019).<\/p>\n

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According to the lawsuit, NPS capitulated to pressure from the Bloomberg Administration by allowing the Tobacco Warehouse and Empire Stores to be removed from the map of a federally protected park.\u00a0\u00a0The City had planned to turn over both structures to private developers.\u00a0\u00a0To justify the removal, the\u00a0Commissioner\u00a0of the New York City Parks Department, Adrian Benepe, and other officials filed letters with NPS, declaring that the structures had been \u2018mistakenly\u2019 included on the federal map in 2001 and that the Tobacco Warehouse, a roofless structure enjoyed by the public for free outdoor programming between 2003 and 2008, was \u2018not intended\u2019 to be used for public recreation.<\/p>\n

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In their lawsuit, Plaintiffs demonstrated that these statements were false.\u00a0Even NPS\u2019s own administrative record proved, as Plaintiffs long believed, that high-level City officials were secretly lobbying NPS and the U.S. Department of the Interior to render a decision in violation of federal law.<\/p>\n

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In a strongly worded opinion, Judge Vitaliano rejected the arguments from NPS, the City, and the other defendants.\u00a0\u00a0\u2018The house of cards erected by the defense cannot withstand the gentlest breeze,\u2019 Judge Vitaliano wrote.\u00a0Addressing the claim that the structures were included on the federal map \u2018by mistake,\u2019 the Judge labelled it as \u2018revisionist,\u2019 and flatly rejected it, saying, \u2018there is . . . not a shred of evidence [to suggest a mistake].\u2019\u00a0\u00a0The Court\u00a0criticized NPS\u2019s decision to rely on information from the City and State agencies \u2018without confirming or even investigating them or requesting any additional information or public comment.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0The Court also rejected the defendants\u2019 assertion that the Tobacco Warehouse was \u2018unsuitable\u2019 for outdoor public recreation.\u00a0\u00a0The Court found the assertion was based on an \u2018invisible record,\u2019 and accused NPS of using \u2018cherry-picked\u2019 information to support it.<\/p>\n

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On an issue of first impression, the Court also rejected NPS\u2019s argument that it had power at all to remove parkland in these circumstances: \u2018the record,\u2019 according to the Court, \u2018unmasks the NPS decisions as contrary to its own regulations.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0The Court concluded as follows: \u2018The [applicable] statute is not silent about revisions; it flatly contradicts the NPS claim of power to correct \u2018oversights\u2019 after a [federal] grant closes.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0Although NPS claimed it had the \u2018inherent authority\u2019 to correct mistakes on\u00a0federal park maps, the Court called this \u2018a last gasp argument\u2019 that \u2018holds no water.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0The Court also declared that NPS\u2019s central determination of a \u2018mistake\u2019 was \u2018flawed both substantively and procedurally.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elizabeth Merritt, Deputy General Counsel of the\u00a0National Trust for Historic Preservation, who attended the March 21st hearing, praised the decision as \u2018an important national precedent.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0She continued, \u2018The Court sent a clear message that NPS cannot evade a mandatory public-review process by secretly altering documents.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0Peg Breen, President of the\u00a0New York Landmarks Conservancy, said: \u2018This ruling reaches far beyond\u00a0Brooklyn.\u00a0\u00a0If the\u00a0National Park Service\u00a0could choose when to enforce the law, historic buildings and parks across the country would suffer.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0Daniel Mackay, Director of Public Policy for the Preservation League of New York State, said: \u2018We hope this decision re-establishes the highest standards of review and protection at the National Park Service for public parklands in\u00a0New York State\u00a0and across the nation.\u00a0\u00a0This injunction is a critical first step in protecting this and other federally funded parkland from rash actions and incomplete public process.\u2019<\/p>\n

New York Landmarks Conservancy: LINK <\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A US Court has upheld \u2018conservancy\u2019 on Tobacco Warehouse, and dismissed NPS, State and City Arguments as, in a sweeping decision, United States District Judge Eric N. Vitaliano ruled that the\u00a0National Park Service\u00a0(\u2018NPS\u2019) violated federal law by removing two historic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2651"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2669,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions\/2669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}