East River Park Action v. City of New York

A New York trial court rejected a public trust doctrine challenge to New York City’s resiliency plan for the Lower East Side that involved elevating an existing park on the East River by eight feet to serve as a barrier to coastal storms and flooding. In a decision announced from the bench, the court found that although the plan involved a “substantial intrusion,” the intrusion was for a park purpose and the public trust doctrine was not implicated. The court indicated that the record supported the conclusion “that without this plan we will likely not even have a park at all” due to climate change. The court also found that any “danger” of the City not restoring the entire park and using a portion for non-park purposes was “speculation.”

Residents of the East Village and the Lower East Side of Manhattan, along with local organizations, filed a lawsuit challenging New York City’s approval of a resiliency plan for the Lower East Side that involved elevating an existing park on the East River by eight feet to serve as a barrier to coastal storms and flooding. The petitioners contended that closing a portion of the park for several years to build the barrier constituted use of parkland for a non-park purpose and that ”recreating a park on top of a seawall is sugar-coating a non-park purpose.” The petitioners asserted that the City therefore violated the public trust doctrine by failing to obtain the New York State legislature’s approval for the non-park use of the land.