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Petitioners Failed to Show the Noise from a Train Affected Them Differently From the Public at Large/Therefore the Petitioners Did Not Have Standing to Raise a Challenge to the Source of the Noise Under the State Environmental Quality Review Act/Purpose of the Standing Requirement in this Context Explained

The Fourth Department determined the petitioners did not have standing to bring  a proceeding to raise a challenge under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) because the noise complaints stemming from a train running through town did not affect the petitioners differently from the public at large.  The train runs through the town pursuant to resolutions allowing the town to sell excess municipal water to a buyer in Pennsylvania.  The Fourth Department noted that the complaints related solely to the operation of the train, not to the operation of the “transloading facility” where the water is loaded onto the trains:

There is no dispute that “[c]ourts surely do provide a forum for airing issues of vital public concern, but so do public hearings and publicly elected legislatures, both of which have functioned here. By contrast to those forums, a litigant must establish its standing in order to seek judicial review” … . “With the growth of litigation to enforce public values, such as protection of the environment, the subject of standing has become a troublesome one for the courts” … . “ ‘[I]njury in fact’ has become the touchstone” for standing …, because “[t]he existence of an injury in fact–an actual legal stake in the matter being adjudicated–ensures that the party seeking review has some concrete interest in prosecuting the action” … .

It is well established that “[s]tanding requirements ‘are not mere pleading requirements but [instead are] an indispensable part of the plaintiff’s case[,]’ and therefore ‘each element must be supported in the same way as any other matter on which the plaintiff bears the burden of proof’ ” … . Where, as here, the proceeding does not involve a “zoning-related issue . . . , there is no presumption of standing to raise” a challenge under the State Environmental Quality Review Act ([SEQRA] ECL art 8) based solely on a party’s proximity … . In such a situation, the party seeking to establish standing must establish that the injury of which he or she complains “falls within the ‘zone of interests,’ or concerns, sought to be promoted or protected” …, and that he or she “would suffer direct harm, injury that is in some way different from that of the public at large” … .

While we agree with petitioners that noise falls within the zone of interests sought to be protected by SEQRA (…see generally ECL 8-0105 [6]), we conclude that respondents met their burden of establishing as a matter of law that [petitioner] did not sustain an injury that was different from that of the public at large. Matter of Sierra Club… v Village of Painted Post, 202, 4th Dept 3-28-14

 

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