The saga of the city's proposed sale and redevelopment of the Brooklyn Heights Library has had plenty of twists and turns, from contentious public meetings to closed door negotiations to an investigation of how the developer was picked to do the redevelopment, and of course, a lawsuit. Now the lawsuit portion of the public fight is over (for now), with a State Supreme Court judge tossing a suit brought to stop the sale of the property to developer Hudson Companies.
The lawsuit seeking to stop the conversion of the library into a high rise apartment building with a library on the bottom floor was brought by Love Brooklyn Libraries, Inc. and claimed the city's environmental review process before approving the project hadn't been thorough enough. However, State Supreme Court Justice Dawn Jimenez-Salta rejected that claim, and accepted the city's case that they had studied the impact of the library redevelopment carefully enough so that "was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or affected by error of law."
Judge Jimenez-Salta also noted that Love Brooklyn Libraries' lawsuit came in more than 15 days after the deadline to sue a government agency, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
Both camps issued dueling statements in the wake of the ruling. City spokesman Austin Finian told DNAinfo, "We are pleased that the court recognized that this suit had no merit," while Love Brooklyn Libraries president Marsha Rimler told the site that, "We're disappointed, but we move forward with confidence," promising an appeal.
For now though, Hudson's plan for a 36-story luxury housing tower with a library on the bottom floor and affordable housing built off-site in Clinton Hill can move forward.
