Brooklyn Judge Rules -- Again -- That View-Blocking Pierhouse Can Stay

Renderings via Pierhouse

Nine months of rallying at city meetings, mass-pamphleting Brooklyn mail drops and aggressive lawyering at Supreme Court level have landed Brooklyn Heights neighborhood group Save the View Now (STVN) exactly where it started.

On Monday, Sept. 21, Kings County Supreme Court Judge Lawrence Knippel ruled that the Pierhouse, a view-blocking development nearing completion in Brooklyn Bridge Park, does not violate any city laws — just as he ruled once before, back in June.

STVN head Steven Guterman said in an email on Monday that the group is “disheartened and shocked” by the repeat decision. (Embedded below.)

“The decision is completely devoid of any explanation about how he came to his conclusion,” Guterman wrote. “We struggle deeply with why such a short ruling with no logic or analysis required seven weeks to write.”

STVN lawyers, funded by concerned neighbors in the upscale hood, had argued in their most recent appeal that the city’s statute of limitations for protesting a building should not apply to the Pierhouse — as it had morphed into an entirely different shape than in its 2005-06 blueprint.

On Monday, the judge pretty much rejected that argument outright.

Yet still, STVN’s now-famous stubbornness lives on.

“We will be conferring with our legal advisors over the next few days to determine our next steps, which will likely include an appeal,” Guterman said.

Update: Pierhouse’s developers, Toll Brothers and Starwood Capital Group, have released the following statement.

“We are pleased that Judge Knipel has dismissed the case against Pierhouse. We are proud to play a part in the historic development of Brooklyn Bridge Park, and we look forward to the grand opening of Pierhouse and 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge in the Spring of 2016.”