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Court Approves FreshDirect Bronx Facility, But Environmental Concerns Remain
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Mar 29, 2014
Modified Mar 29, 2014
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By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Mar 29, 2014
Modified Mar 29, 2014
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This week, the state's Appellate Court voted in favor of the FreshDirect facility planned for the Bronx's Port Morris neighborhood, supporting a move by a Bronx Supreme Court judge to dismiss an environmental lawsuit lodged against the company last year. But critics are still concerned about further developing the highly contaminated area, and community groups continue to oppose the deal.
In a decision [PDF] released on Thursday, an Appellate Court judge found that the city—which is subsidizing much of the facility—did not improperly conduct an environmental review of the area. The court's decision was lauded by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., who praised the project for adding 1,000 new jobs in the Bronx, and relocating 2,000 jobs to the borough from Queens. "FreshDirect will continue to be a great asset to the Bronx. My office has, since day one, understood that this project is crucial to the future economic health and vitality of the Bronx, and I am glad to see that the continued legal efforts to stop this critical project have been thoroughly dismissed," he said in a statement.
Not that everyone's excited. "Essentially, South Bronx residents have been told by the court that an environmental impact statement conducted 21 years ago is good enough to go by but this is an extremely flawed, morally irresponsible decision by the court when given the strong case that legally EXISTS to demand a new EIS be conducted," local activist Ed García Conde wrote on blog Welcome2TheBronx. He, along with South Bronx Unite—which lodged the initial lawsuit against the project—and over 50 community groups continue to protest the project, arguing that adding more pollution and truck traffic to the neighborhood will hurt an area they believe is already environmentally unsound.
FreshDirect, meanwhile, issued the following statement regarding the facility from co-founder and CEO Jason Ackerman:
FreshDirect is a New York success story. We started here and have grown here, creating approximately 1,000 jobs over the last five years that pay fair wages. We are now poised to continue our growth by bringing 2,000 jobs to the Bronx and creating a thousand more. We are going to increase access to fresh food and generate the kind of economic activity that will impact the borough and the entire city for generations to come.
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