PETITIONERS CLOSE TO THE PROPOSED GAS STATION HAD STANDING TO CONTEST THE BOARD’S SEQRA RULING APPROVING CONSTRUCTION, SUPREME COURT PROPERLY FOUND THE BOARD’S APPROVAL WAS IMPROPER UNDER SEQRA (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department determined one of the petitioners did not have standing to contest the board’s State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) ruling because he lived more that 2000 feet from the proposed gas station. The other petitioners, whose businesses were across the street from the proposed gas station, had standing. The Second Department held that the board had not taken the required “hard look” at the proposal to add a gas station with 16 pumps to the project which had been approved:

… [T]he Supreme Court properly concluded that the Planning Board failed to comply with the substantive requirements of SEQRA in determining that a second SEIS (Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement] was not required prior to its approval of the site plan. As is relevant to this appeal, a lead agency may require a SEIS, “limited to the specific significant adverse environmental impacts not addressed or inadequately addressed in the EIS that arise from . . . changes proposed for the project” (6 NYCRR 617.9[a][7][i]). “In making this fact-intensive determination, the lead agency has discretion to weigh and evaluate the credibility of reports and comments submitted to it and must assess environmental concerns in conjunction with other economic and social planning goals”… .

Although a lead agency’s determination whether to require a SEIS, or a second SEIS, is discretionary … , the lead agency must “consider[ ] the environmental issues requiring permits” and must make “an independent judgment that they would not create significant environmental impact” … . Here, the changes proposed for the project after the issuance of the 2009 findings statement included the construction of a large convenience store with 16 gas pumps. …

Under these circumstances, the Planning Board failed to take the requisite hard look at the project change adding the gas station, and did not make a reasoned elaboration of its basis for determining that a second SEIS was not necessary to address that change … . Matter of Green Earth Farms Rockland, LLC v Town of Haverstraw Planning Bd., 2017 NY Slip Op 06273, Second Dept 8-23-17

 

ENVIRONMENTAL LAW (PETITIONERS CLOSE TO THE PROPOSED GAS STATION HAD STANDING TO CONTEST THE TOWN BOARD’S SEQRA RULING APPROVING CONSTRUCTION, SUPREME COURT PROPERLY FOUND THE TOWN BOARD’S APPROVAL WAS IMPROPER UNDER SEQRA (SECOND DEPT))/MUNICIPAL LAW (ENVIRONMENTAL LAW, PETITIONERS CLOSE TO THE PROPOSED GAS STATION HAD STANDING TO CONTEST THE TOWN BOARD’S SEQRA RULING APPROVING CONSTRUCTION, SUPREME COURT PROPERLY FOUND THE TOWN BOARD’S APPROVAL WAS IMPROPER UNDER SEQRA (SECOND DEPT))/STATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY REVIEW ACT (SEQRA) (PETITIONERS CLOSE TO THE PROPOSED GAS STATION HAD STANDING TO CONTEST THE TOWN BOARD’S SEQRA RULING APPROVING CONSTRUCTION, SUPREME COURT PROPERLY FOUND THE TOWN BOARD’S APPROVAL WAS IMPROPER UNDER SEQRA (SECOND DEPT))/STANDING, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW, (PETITIONERS CLOSE TO THE PROPOSED GAS STATION HAD STANDING TO CONTEST THE TOWN BOARD’S SEQRA RULING APPROVING CONSTRUCTION (SECOND DEPT))