Battery Park City Neighborhood Association v. Battery Park City Authority

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.

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.

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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.