Tribeca Opponents of Court’s Move Sue to Stop 'Clogged Way Station'

Opponents of the city’s plan to relocate a summons court to Thomas Street and West Broadway are pressing hard to stop it.

Their online petition against the move by the end of last month had more than 1,500 signatures. Thou­sands of dollars fill its growing legal coffers. And last month they sued the city to block the plan. The judge issued a temporary restraining order, which keeps the city from proceeding until Jan. 15.

The lawsuit, filed by nearby residents and several business owners, claims that the summons court would change the neighborhood from a “quiet, residential community into a clogged way station for persons charged with summonable offenses.”

The court, known as the Sum­mons Arraignment Part, adjudicates tickets for a gamut of offenses. The most common one, according to the city’s statistics, is for public consumption of alcohol.

The court is now housed three blocks away at 346 Broadway, a building with many municipal offices. The city is selling the building to a developer with plans to convert it into a hotel and condominiums; its offices are being dispersed to other city-owned buildings. (The planned move of a probation office to 66 John Street has stirred an uproar in the Financial District [1].)

Opponents are claiming in court that the city by­passed a required public re­view process for the sale of 346 Broad­way and an environmental study for the court’s move to Thomas Street.

A spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department, citing the “active litigation,” declined to comment on the case.  But in October, Cas Hol­loway, the city’s deputy mayor for operations, appeared be-fore Community Board 1 to defend the move. While not commenting on the review process, he said there would be no major impact on the neighborhood. Unlike at 346 Broadway, people would not queue outside because a waiting area for 250 people would be built into the space, which now houses a civil court. On average, 500 peo­ple report to the court daily, Holloway said.

“This was one of the only areas where you could do the queuing inside,” he said.

But opponents maintain that an interior holding area is not enough.

“People get there early in order to get out early so everybody is around the block before the doors are open,” said their lawyer, Richard Emery. “Even when there’s 250 people inside there’s still another 400 people who need to be processed, and they process them very slowly.”