Senior Center activists to try other suits

The county Superior Court ruled Feb. 10 that a group of activists should have sued sooner to have plans for a new, five-acre senior center in Central Park reexamined.

The center was voted upon by the public in 2006. The Parks Legal Defense Fund claimed the following year at its founding that the center’s environmental documentation should have been completed before the center was put to a vote, and is now arguing a four-issue lawsuit in the courts.

“Last week, the court held the trial on the single issue of whether or not the vote was properly done,” City Attorney Jennifer McGrath said.

McGrath said the judge ruled in favor of the city because the statute of limitations on the issue had already run out, but noted that if the pro-park organization had sued early enough, the judge would most likely have ruled in favor of the other side.

“We needed to file the lawsuit earlier than we did,” confirmed attorney Mark Allen of the Parks Legal Defense Fund.

“I think it’s not really what we wanted to have happen, but it’s not altogether negative for us, because the judge has already found that the city violated CEQA,” Allen said. “We have a status conference coming up in two weeks, and at that time, the judge will set a trial date.”

McGrath said the judge didn’t make the CEQA determination — apparently as it was a moot point, since the statute had run out.

The baby boomer generation makes up a huge percentage of the population that will need a larger facility in the future than currently exists, senior center proponents say.

The defense fund hopes to use the three other causes of action up its sleeve to force the city to consider other sites for the center than Central Park.

The possible routes include proving the city will fund the park illegally, that it disregarded alternate locations for the senior center, like closed school sites, or that it will be unable to substitute new habitats for birds in the park.

Allen said he’s confident that some or all of the causes of action will be upheld in court, and that his group may be amenable to other arrangements on the parkland.

“There’s an ongoing question in our minds about how big the senior center really is,” Allen said. “Right now it looks like it’s bigger than the environmental documents said.”

Allen said that if the planned center was indeed larger than indicated, there would still be time to make the center’s footprint smaller, so it would affect as few parkgoers as possible.

“I think we have to wait and see what the city decides,” Allen said. “We’re hoping for a decision that we won’t have any complaint about.”

But in a perfect world, the city would use a non-park location for the center, Allen said.

“What they’re basically doing is considering this land as free, which means they’re saying that the parkland has zero value. To take it away has real cost to people. It’s not free. In fact, it’s just about the most expensive land you can find,” Allen said.

The trial will continue in March.

“I can’t see building a senior center on the backs of our children,” Allen said. “We are taking away a heritage that they can never, ever replace by building it in that park.”