ALLOWING THE APPLICANT FOR SITE PLAN APPROVAL TO RETURN WITH A SIGNAGE PROPOSAL AFTER THE PLAN WAS APPROVED DID NOT CONSTITUTE (IMPERMISSIBLE) SEGMENTATION UNDER SEQRA (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department determined the fact the site plan was approved by the planning board without signage did not constitute segmentation under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA):

The fact that the site plan was approved without signage did not constitute segmentation under SEQRA. Segmentation is defined as the division of the environmental review of a single action such that various activities or stages are addressed as though they are independent, unrelated activities, needing individual determinations of significance (see 6 NYCRR 617.2[ah]). The regulations which prohibit segmentation are designed to guard against a distortion of the approval process by preventing a project with potentially significant environmental effects from being split into two or more smaller projects, each falling below the threshold requiring full-blown review … . Here, signage is not being treated as an independent, unrelated activity, but as a part of the entire project, and allowing [the applicant] to return to the Planning Board with a signage proposal will not distort the approval process. Matter of Route 17K Real Estate, LLC v Planning Bd. of the Town of Newburgh, 2021 NY Slip Op 05858, Second Dept 10-27-21