Community Groups Ask NY's Top Court to Block Penn Mega-Project
Lawsuit says state agency bypassed environmental review of 10-tower, 18M SF plan.
In what promises to be the NIMBY fight of the decade, a group of community activists have filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court seeking to overturn the state’s approval of a massive redevelopment plan for the area around Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan.
The Penn Community Defense Fund, ReThink NYC, the City Club of New York and residents of 251 West 30th Street are alleging in the lawsuit that the Empire State Development Corp. (ESD)—NY’s top economic development agency—illegally sidestepped an environmental review and overrode NYC’s zoning laws to grant the owners of eight sites surrounding Penn Station 18M SF of development rights.
In July, ESD’s board unanimously granted the rights as part of its approval of what the state agency is now calling the Empire Station Complex—the state-backed plan to surround the redeveloped Penn Station with 10 new commercial towers, including offices and retail.
The master plan for project—on a scale similar to Hudson Yards (and that’s after it was scaled back, earlier this year)—also includes 1,800 housing units and a hotel. Penn Station’s underground warren of train tunnels also will be rebuilt.
The central claim of the lawsuit is that the state bypassed a required environmental review of the project’s master plan—known as the Uniform Land Use and Review Procedures—by declaring the area around Penn Station “blighted.”
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege that ESD committed “segmentation,” meaning that its Penn Station proposal was planned separately from Amtrak’s Gateway Program, a multibillion-effort to build a new rail tunnel connecting New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, and from a redevelopment plan put forward by Vornado Realty Trust, which owns five of the eight sites covered by ESD’s plan.
The lawsuit claims the neighborhood surrounding Penn Station “come nowhere near meeting the definition of blighted,” noting it includes several prosperous commercial towers as well as landmarked structures and Madison Square Garden.
The lawsuit also alleges that the plan ESD approved is actually a “joint venture” between the state agency and Vornado.
Vornado declined to comment, but a civic group that supports the redevelopment plan—which has been discussed for more than a decade—said that it has undergone extensive public review.
“We all want an improved, modernized Penn Station and surrounding district and [this] plan achieves just that and more – to the significant benefit of the public,” Carlo A. Scissura, president and CEO of the New York Building Congress, told GlobeSt.
“It’s a shame NIMBYs continue to use the same failed playbook that ends up delaying smart, strategic investments in New York. This comprehensive plan has undergone an extensive public review process that’s included elected officials, community leaders, transit advocates and thousands of New Yorkers,” Scissura said.
“We are a city that says ‘yes’ to transformative development and growth and right now we need to keep focusing on delivering this plan that will create tens of thousands of jobs and boost our entire region’s economy,” he said.