2008
Pennsylvannia Supreme Court OKs casino plan
Posted by admin in Casino InfoThe state Supreme Court yesterday removed whatever oversight the city had on casino development, effectively knocking down City Council’s all-or-nothing strategy against two waterfront casinos.
The Supreme Court yesterday awarded Foxwoods Casino the zoning permit and approvals that a City Council had withheld for nearly a year. The ruling came four months after the court issued a similar decision on behalf of SugarHouse Casino, the other slots parlor planned for the Delaware River waterfront.
As it did with SugarHouse on Dec. 3, the court awarded zoning, deemed the Foxwoods development plan approved, and authorized all revisions to the city map in Foxwoods’ plan. It also agreed with the plaintiff that Council had been “obstructionist.”
It directed the city “to take all actions necessary to implement the relief granted.”
“Obviously we’re thrilled with the Supreme Court’s decision,” said Foxwoods spokeswoman Maureen Garrity. “The court ruled not just in favor of our project, but the jobs and tax benefits that will come from it.”
Foxwoods attorney Jeffrey Rotwitt called the decision “a cure-all” for any city opposition.
The decision means that City Council, which had raised alarms about Foxwoods’ plans to control traffic around the site, has lost its leverage to influence those plans - and that no elected body will regulate the combined $1.3 billion in construction slated for the two projects.
“It’s very troubling,” said Terry Gillen, a senior advisor who heads up Mayor Nutter’s casino policy. “That’s why I think we’re concerned about what this means about the city’s ability to control two significant parcels on the waterfront.”
It was exactly the fate that former City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. had warned would play out if City Council, led by the district’s councilman, Frank DiCicco, insisted on opposing the two casinos, which were first awarded licenses by the state Gaming Control Board in December 2006.
Both sites are located in DiCicco’s First District, which includes Center City and a swath of the waterfront from South Philadelphia through Fishtown.
The court ruled that Council had blocked the casinos by failing to act on Foxwoods’ plan, which was recommended by the Planning Commission last April and submitted to Council by Mayor Street on May 30. No council member would sponsor it.
Even DiCicco had warned of such an outcome, but bowed to political pressure from neighborhood groups, who worried about traffic and other impacts, and anti-casino groups who argued that casinos create problems such as gambling addictions that cost more than jobs and tax revenue.
“I said from Day One that the last thing I wanted to do was have the courts make these decisions,” DiCicco said yesterday. “My constituents were of the decision that we needed to take the fight to the casinos, and that’s what we did.”
DiCicco said he was exploring possible options to continue the fight.
Foxwoods and SugarHouse made use of DiCicco quotes about blocking and delaying the casinos to argue that he was obstructing them. All 16 other Council members deferred to DiCicco on the issue, holding to the tradition of “councilmanic prerogative,” in which council members are loathe to vote against a colleague on an issue that falls within their district.
But even the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t guarantee a quick start to construction. SugarHouse, after winning its court battle in December, predicted that construction would begin in matter of weeks.
Four months later, SugarHouse hasn’t put a shovel in the ground as it awaits an Army Corps of Engineers permit to build along the riverbank. Opposition to the site now centers on Revolutionary War and American Indian artifacts on the site. SugarHouse also is tied up in litigation, also before the Supreme Court, over its right to build over state-owned riverbed land. The Supreme Court will hear that case in April.
“This going to be a major tug of war over a number of months, or years,” said Daniel Hunter, a coordinator for Casino Free Philadelphia, the leading anti-casino group in the city.
Rotwitt, the Foxwoods attorney, said: “I never want to underestimate the resources of our foes.”
“But,” he said, “this should make it a completely unfettered way to go forward at this point.”
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