Public meeting set for Feb. 27 to hear comments on draft scope for Atlantic Yards SEIS; written comments until March 14

How much worse would a 25-year Atlantic Yards buildout be than the ten-year buildout long promised and the 15-year scenario studied in 2009 when the project was re-approved?

Well, the state will hear comments on the design of a court-ordered Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) next month.

On 12/20/12, Empire State Development (ESD) issued a 20-page Draft Scope for a SEIS nearly six months after the state Court of Appeals rejected an attempt to appeal an appellate court's unanimous affirmation of a lower court's order to study the potential impact of a 25-year Atlantic Yards buildout.

Today, ESD announced:

A public scoping meeting has been scheduled to obtain comments on the draft scope of work for the DSEIS. The meeting will be held on February 27, 2013 from 5:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. at St. Francis College, Founders Hall, 182 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, New York. Copies of the draft scope of analysis may be obtained from ESD’s Web site, www.esd.ny.gov/AtlanticYards, or may be requested through the contact information provided below. Comments on the draft scope of work may be presented by members of the public or any interested party at the public scoping meeting or submitted in writing to: Empire State Development (Attn: Atlantic Yards), 633 Third Avenue, 37th floor, New York, NY 10017, atlanticyards@esd.ny.gov. Written comments will be accepted until 5:00 P.M. on March 14, 2013.

Note that this is a preliminary meeting, to discuss the scope of the SEIS, not its content.

After a Draft SEIS is issued, a public hearing will be held to take comments. In August 2006, the hearing on the Draft EIS was epic.

These days, passions around Atlantic Yards have subsided considerably. That said, it's a reasonable bet that the hearing on the Draft SEIS will be more substantive--since people can react to a document, not just a design--than the scoping meeting.