Lawsuit Wants To Halt Two Bridges Towers On The Lower East Side

LOWER EAST SIDE, NY — A coalition of Lower East Side community groups is suing the city to stop four towers from rising in the Two Bridges neighborhood between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

The Lower East Side Organized Neighbors, Chinese Staff & Workers' Association, among others, have announced their lawsuit against the Department of City Planning, the City Planning Commission and its chair Marisa Lago and the Department of Buildings, which is expected to be filed in Manhattan's Supreme Court. Ken Kimerling, an attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, is representing the groups in court.

Friday morning, a few dozen people chanted "no towers, no compromises!" in the rain at Manhattan's Supreme Court building.

"Make no mistake, this is robbery," said Zishun Ning, a community activist representing the groups. "How can we compromise our lives, our dignity, our community."

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JDS Developer Group plans to build a 1,008-foot towers at 247 Cherry St., while CIM Group and L+M Development Partners will build a 798-foot two-tower project at 260 South St. A third developer, Starrett Development, will construct a 730-foot building Clinton St.

The towers will bring more than 2,700 apartments to the neighborhood, with 25 percent of the units earmarked as below market rate.

The project was approved by the City Planning Commission in December after months of outrage that the towers would not be required to go through the formal review process known as the uniform land use review procedure (ULURP).

City Council and Borough President Gale Brewer filed a separate lawsuit days after City Planning's vote, arguing the projects must go through ULURP — which would give Councilmember Margaret Chin a critical vote and more leeway for negotiations on the project. The lawsuit also unveiled a deed restriction that requires one of the towers to be set aside for low-income, elderly residents.

The activists' lawsuit, however, aims to stop the towers altogether.

Ning said the politicians' lawsuit to push the project through ULURP would only end with Chin negotiating for "crumbs" for the community.

"The scale of these four towers, and the permanent negative impacts they will cause on air, sunlight, subway congestion, and population density, as well as loss of open space, as shown in the [Environmental Impact Statement] prepared pursuant [to City Environmental Quality Review] are at a minimum an enormous changes [sic] to the [Two Bridges area]," the lawsuit states. "This project has 'unmitigatable' significant adverse impacts."

The suit also notes that the proposed development at 247 Cherry St. is in contradiction with another city-level effort to stop developers' from building empty spaces called "voids" to elevate apartments for luxury views.

The tower at 247 Cherry St. has 15-stories worth of mechanical space and voids that is "extraordinary and introduces bulk to the neighborhood that provides only impacts and no benefits," the suit says.

The Law Department stood by City Planning's vote and emphasized the surge of nearly 700 below market rate units the projects would bring to Two Bridges.

“The city stands by its review and approvals for this project which is expected to add hundreds of affordable housing units and improve transit infrastructure for the community," Nick Paolucci, a spokesman for the Law Department, said in a statement. "We will review the case when we are served.”

Developers said in a statement: “At a time when projects delivering tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions in community investment are being opposed by anti-development sentiment across the city, it’s important to remember what’s at stake here, all proposed after years of community consultation, public review and environmental analysis, and in compliance with zoning that’s been in place for more than 30 years."

The developers said the projects' nearly 700 below market rate units is critical, "as the city approaches 9 million residents and the creation of housing of all types is critical to alleviating the inevitable pressure on the city's existing housing stock," they said.

Developers have agreed to fund $40 million for ADA-accessibility at the East Broadway subway station, $12.5 million in repairs to a NYCHA building and $15 million for three public parks.

"Without our projects, all that investment goes away. We look forward to the swift resolution of this baseless lawsuit and to starting construction," they said.