High Court Won’t Hear Appeal on Atlantic Yards

By Sewell Chan

The United States Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by 11 New York City property owners and tenants whose homes and businesses are scheduled to be taken over by the government and demolished to make way for the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.

The justices, without comment, declined to hear the plaintiffs’ argument that the seizure of their property would violate the United States Constitution. (A notation on the court’s case list indicated that Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. would have voted to hear the case; such notations are not uncommon.) In February, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a trial judge’s dismissal of the landowners’ and tenants’ suit.

However, the plaintiffs, including Daniel Goldstein, the leader of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, which opposes the Atlantic Yards project, vowed to continue their legal fight by turning, once again, to the state courts. Matthew Brinckerhoff, the lawyer for plaintiffs, said in a statement:

High Court Won’t Hear Appeal on Atlantic Yards....