Owners of Land Slated for Development Had Standing to Challenge Procedures Used by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to Amend Regulations Affecting Endangered Species/The Land In Question Was Home to Two Endangered Species/Therefore the Amendments Affected the Land Owners Differently from the Public at Large

The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Lippman, determined that the petitioners (land owners) had standing to raise claims that the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation failed to adhere to certain procedural requirements before adopting amendments aimed at protecting endangered species.  The land, which was designated for economic development, was home to two endangered species.  The Court explained why the petitioners had alleged a unique “injury,” different from injury to the public at large, which comported standing to raise the procedural claims:

Standing is a threshold determination, resting in part on policy considerations, that a person should be allowed access to the courts to adjudicate the merits of a particular dispute that satisfies the other justiciability criteria” … . Petitioner has the burden of establishing both an injury in fact and that the asserted injury is within the zone of interests sought to be protected by the statute alleged to have been violated … . In land use matters, moreover, petitioner “must show that it would suffer direct harm, injury that is in some way different from that of the public at large” … . These requirements ensure that the courts are adjudicating actual controversies for parties that have a genuine stake in the litigation … . * * *

Petitioners, governmental entities titled to land for the purpose of redevelopment, whose property is subject to the amended regulations, have alleged a sufficient injury in fact for these purposes. We do not, and need not, decide whether land ownership, by itself, could satisfy the injury requirement. As the United States Supreme Court has recognized, a litigant’s ” some day’ intentions -— without any description of concrete plans, or indeed even any specification of when the some day will be —- do not support a finding of the actual or imminent’ injury that our cases require” … . Here, however, there is more than an amorphous allegation of potential future injury. Petitioners have asserted a concrete interest in the matter the agency is regulating, and a concrete injury from the agency’s failure to follow procedure. Moreover, in connection with [a] prior proposal to subdivide the land at issue, DEC provided them with an outline for a comprehensive habitat protection plan and indicated its intention to serve as lead agency for the purposes of SEQRA (State Environment Quality Review Act) review. Petitioners’ allegations are sufficient to satisfy the requirements that they have an actual stake in the litigation and suffer a harm that is different from that of the public at large… .

Petitioners further allege that the violation of these procedural statutes deprived them of an adequate “airing” of the relevant issues and impacts of the proposed amendments, as well as an accurate assessment of the projected costs involved. The asserted statutory provisions set forth certain procedural steps to be followed when promulgating rules or regulations. The alleged violations, including the deprivation of an opportunity to be heard, constitute injuries to petitioners within the zone of interests sought to be protected by the statutes. Most significantly, to deny petitioners standing in this case would have the effect of insulating these amendments from timely procedural challenge — a result that is contrary to the public interest … . Given the compressed four-month statute of limitations (see SAPA 202 [8]), we would be erecting an “impenetrable barrier” to any review of this facet of the administrative action… .  Matter of Association for a Better Long Is Inc v New York State Dept of Envtl Conservation 2014 NY Slip Op 02216, CtApp 4-1-14