A Forest Hills homeowners\u2019 association is taking the city to court, claiming the NYPD has illegally commandeered its private streets during events at the neighborhood\u2019s namesake concert venue.<\/p>\n
The Forest Hills Gardens Corporation (FHGC), which represents homeowners in the historic Queens community, filed the federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Monday.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The Forest Hills Gardens Corporation has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the city and the NYPD of unlawfully using private streets for concert access to Forest Hills Stadium
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The suit focuses on the 2023 and 2024 concert seasons, alleging police erected barricades and funneled crowds through private streets despite the group revoking all licenses in 2022
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The group argues the city\u2019s actions amount to an unconstitutional taking of private property and is seeking compensation for homeowners<\/p>\n
In a press release, FHGC said the city and the NYPD \u201cunlawfully seized the community\u2019s private streets and sidewalks to funnel tens of thousands of concertgoers to Forest Hills Stadium \u2014 without consent or compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor several years, the City has illegally seized FHGC\u2019s private streets, even after acknowledging that they are privately owned and off-limits,\u201d attorney Katherine Rosenfeld said in a statement. \u201cBy shutting down FHGC\u2019s streets and funneling thousands of concertgoers through the community without its consent, the City has carried out a long-running unlawful taking \u2014 siding with a billion-dollar concert enterprise over the rights of local residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
The release says FHGC terminated all licenses that allowed for \u201cconcert-related use\u201d of its streets in 2022, citing disruptions from crowds and noise.<\/p>\n
But according to the lawsuit, NYPD officers continued to barricade and close the private roads during the 2023 and 2024 concert seasons, directing concertgoers through the Gardens\u2019 streets to reach the stadium. Those closures, the group alleges, blocked residents \u201cfrom being able to fully access, use, and enjoy their property.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City has compelled and authorized this constantly recurring physical invasion of tens of thousands of strangers onto Plaintiff\u2019s private streets even though the Stadium is accessible entirely via public streets, and without providing any compensation to Plaintiff, much less just compensation,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n
Noise violations have also been issued to the stadium, including three during the \u201cAll Things Go\u201d festival held from Sept. 26 to Sept. 28, according to the release.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur private streets are not a shortcut for a commercial concert business,\u201d FHGC board president Anthony Oprisiu said in a statement. \u201cFor over a century, Forest Hills Gardens has been a carefully stewarded residential community. The City cannot trample the rights of more than 4,000 residents and commandeer our property without consent or compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the city\u2019s Law Department on Tuesday said the case is under review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Forest Hills homeowners\u2019 association is taking the city to court, claiming the NYPD has illegally commandeered its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2476,25,2025,576,9,24,12,2475,63,122,124,123,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-1934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-app-community","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-community-news","11":"tag-erica-brosnan","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-ny1-in-the-community","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-queens","18":"tag-queens-headlines","19":"tag-queens-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}