Yesterday's court ruling denying NYU the use of parkland for private development is as important as it is exciting. I am thrilled by this great victory for the community and NYU faculty who joined in this effort. The Court's rejection of this attempt to usurp parkland without proper approval by the State Legislature, reaffirms a crucial tenet of parkland protection.

This decision is a huge victory after years of work by the community as we united together to protect the Village from the overdevelopment proposed by NYU. I am honored to have been a petitioner on this case and stand with so many community members, groups and faculty members on behalf of our entire community. In addition to the 20 co-petitioners, I would like to thank Randy Mastro, Jim Walden and the team at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher who provided pro-bono, legal expertise to this case.

I do not expect that this will be the end of our development concerns, or even our legal battles over the NYU 2031 Plan, but this is a huge victory nonetheless. I can tell you that as a member of the NYS Legislature, I will not support such legislation and will continue my fight to protect our community.