The Atlantic Yards timetable, and the significance of a decade unstudied

As I wrote 12/15/10, noting that the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) did consider a potential five-year delay in the Atlantic Yards timetable, ESDC attorney Philip Karmel stated in a legal affirmation:

Remarkably, the five-year legal battle over Atlantic Yards has thus come down to this: a dispute as to whether the 2009 Technical Memorandum should have assumed a 25-year build out instead of a 15-year build out in its analysis of the environmental impacts of a market-driven delay in the schedule for the Project's development.

He seemed to be suggesting that ten years is an insignificant interval, even for an interim surface parking lot.

The timetable case will be heard today at noon in Manhattan Supreme Court before state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman, at 60 Centre Street, IAS MOTION Part 57, Room 335.

The significance of a decade

As for Karmel's statement, it all depends on perspective, right? Consider some alternatives in which the difference between 15 and 25 is significant.

1. Remarkably, it has come to this: whether we think the warranty on the boiler should last 15 years rather than 25.
2. Remarkably, it has come to this: whether the pill should be 15 mg, not 25.
3. Remarkably, it has come to this: whether he should have known that the female was 15 rather than, as she said, 25.