MATTER OF VILLAGE OF TARRYTOWN v. Planning Board of Village of Sleepy Hollow
| Decision Date | 25 March 2002 |
| Citation | 741 N.Y.S.2d 44,292 A.D.2d 617 |
| Parties | In the Matter of VILLAGE OF TARRYTOWN, Respondent,<BR>v.<BR>PLANNING BOARD OF VILLAGE OF SLEEPY HOLLOW et al., Appellants. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law, with costs, the petition is denied, and the determination is confirmed.
In December 1998, County House Road, LLC (hereinafter CHR) purchased six parcels of land, totaling 60 acres. Five of the parcels are in the Village of Tarrytown (hereinafter collectively referred to as the Tarrytown properties). The Tarrytown properties comprise 48.1 acres. Some of the Tarrytown properties were separated from other Tarrytown properties by public streets, by land owned by the Village of Tarrytown, and by land owned by third parties. The sixth parcel, which comprises 11.9 acres, is in the neighboring Village of Sleepy Hollow. The Sleepy Hollow parcel is located on the southeastern side of the Village of Sleepy Hollow and abuts, to its south, one of the Tarrytown properties. Shortly after CHR purchased this land, the Village of Tarrytown Board of Trustees enacted a building moratorium on all new construction within an area of the Village that included the Tarrytown properties.
After it purchased the property, CHR submitted an application to subdivide the Sleepy Hollow parcel and build 11 single-family homes. Accompanying this application was an environmental assessment form (hereinafter EAF). Appended to the EAF were a traffic study detailing the impact that an 11-unit subdivision would have on local traffic patterns, a storm water drainage and management report, and an ecological study detailing the various plant and animal life indigenous to the subdivision.
The Planning Board of the Village of Sleepy Hollow (hereinafter the Planning Board) initiated the State Environmental Quality Review Act (ECL art 8; hereinafter SEQRA) process by declaring itself the lead agency. There were numerous formal communications between CHR and the Planning Board's planning consultant, as well as direct communications among the Planning Board, CHR, and the public at open hearings of the Planning Board. The net result of these communications was that CHR changed the proposed layout of the subdivision in such a way as to minimize its impact on steep slopes, vegetation, and water runoff; the surfaces impervious to water; and the curb cuts onto County House Road. It would also build a water runoff detention basin to improve storm water flow; deposit sufficient money in an interest-bearing escrow account to maintain that detention basin; install sufficient vegetation to screen the subdivision from the view of people on County House Road and the neighboring Rockefeller estate; and leave a total of 2.38 acres of the subdivision as open space, some of which was to be dedicated to the Village of Sleepy Hollow as a park. The final expanded EAF submitted by CHR detailed the steps it would take to mitigate the environmental impacts of its development, including an alleged negligible effect on the one-tenth of an acre of the 11.9 acre subdivision which was located in the Tarrytown Lakes Critical Environmental Area (hereinafter CEA), and detailed how the Village of Sleepy Hollow would be able to provide adequate utilities, such as sewer and water service. This final expanded EAF, at the Planning Board's request, also included a traffic analysis and storm water management report detailing the environmental impacts of the proposed subdivision and a full as-of-right build-out of the Tarrytown properties to their maximum density.
The Planning Board found that development of CHR's subdivision would not have a significant environmental impact and, in that regard, issued both a negative declaration pursuant to SEQRA and preliminary subdivision plat approval. The Village of Tarrytown commenced this proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78 to challenge that determination, contending, inter alia, that the Planning Board improperly segmented the environmental assessment of the Sleepy Hollow portion of this unified project. In that regard, Tarrytown contended that the Planning Board did not take the required "hard look" at the cumulative impacts of a full as-of-right development of all six parcels owned by CHR.
The Supreme Court granted the petition and annulled the Planning Board's negative declaration pursuant to SEQRA, finding that all six properties were contiguous and the two projects were not segmented. The Supreme Court also enjoined the Planning Board from granting any subdivision approvals until a full environmental impact statement (hereinafter EIS) has been prepared for all 60 acres of CHR's properties.
The law is well settled that judicial review of a SEQRA determination is limited to determining whether the challenged determination was affected by an error of law or was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or was the product of a violation of lawful procedure (see Akpan v Koch, 75 NY2d 561; Matter of Jackson v New York State Urban Dev. Corp., 67 NY2d 400; Matter of City of Rye v Korff, 249 AD2d 470). In reviewing the lead agency's determination, the court must determine whether the lead agency "identified the relevant areas of environmental concern, took a `hard look' at them, and made a `reasoned elaboration' of the basis for its determination" (Matter of Jackson v New York State Urban Dev. Corp., supra at 417; see Chinese Staff & Workers Assn. v City of New York, 68 NY2d 359; Matter of Doremus v Town of Oyster Bay, 274 AD2d 390). In this regard, "it is not the role of the courts to weigh the desirability of any action or choose among alternatives, but to assure that the agency itself has satisfied SEQRA, procedurally and substantively" (Matter of Jackson v New York State Urban Dev. Corp., supra at 416; see Matter of Chemical Specialties Mfrs. Assn. v Jorling, 85 NY2d 382; Chinese Staff & Workers Assn. v City of New York, supra).
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