New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner has the right to demolish five properties within the Brooklyn footprint of his proposed $2.5 billion office, housing and basketball arena project, a New York State Supreme Court judge affirmed Tuesday.

However, Judge Carol Edmead sided with Atlantic Yards opponents on a conflict-of-interest issue involving an attorney hired by the New York State agency that is overseeing the project.

Edmead found that because the attorney, David Paget, already represents Ratner's real estate company on another matter, allowing him to work for Empire State Development Corp. in reviewing the Ratner plan would be improper.

"The magnitude of the impact of ESDC's future actions are so monumental, and will have such a considerable effect on an entire conglomerate of communities, that the slightest appearance of impropriety and conflict warrant the disqualification of Mr. Paget and his firm from the involvement in ESDC's review and approval process," Edmead wrote in her ruling.

Jeffrey Braun, an attorney for Forest City Ratner -- the company run by Ratner -- said that the need for ESDC to find new counsel would "cause a little delay [in the development timeline], but not too much."

"We are probably in the range of 10 days away from demolition of the first building," Braun said, adding that the company already had completed an asbestos inspection of that building."