Save Pine Bush, Inc. v. City of Albany

• Decision Date: 11 June 1987
• Citation: 512 N.E.2d 526,70 N.Y.2d 193,518 N.Y.S.2d 943
• Parties: , 512 N.E.2d 526 In the Matter of SAVE the PINE BUSH, INC., et al., Appellants- Respondents, v. CITY OF ALBANY et al., Respondents-Appellants.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 943

518 N.Y.S.2d 943

70 N.Y.2d 193, 512 N.E.2d 526

In the Matter of SAVE the PINE BUSH, INC., et al Appellants- Respondents, v. CITY OF ALBANY et al., Respondents-Appellants.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 11, 1987.

Vincent J. McArdle, Jr., Corp. Counsel (Gary F. Stiglmeier, Albany, of counsel), for City of Albany, respondent-appellant.

Peter A. Lynch, Albany, for Willard T. Anderson, respondent-appellant.

Lewis B. Oliver, Jr., and Harriet B. Oliver, Albany, for appellants-respondents.

Gary H. Gutchess, Albany, for The New York State Builders Ass'n, Inc., amicus curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

TITONE, Judge.

The clash between the goals of environmental preservation and commercial development of the Pine Bush area of the City of Albany has given rise to this dispute. Plaintiffs-petitioners allege that violations of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) should render the City's enactment of three ordinances which open the Pine Bush to commercial development invalid and that the first of the ordinances is vague and constitutes an overbroad delegation of authority. First, we hold that a proceeding alleging SEQRA violations in the enactment of legislation must be commenced within four months of the date of enactment of the ordinance. Thus, the SEQRA challenges to the first two ordinances are untimely. In addition, the cause of action alleging vagueness and an overbroad delegation of authority in the first ordinance, although timely, is not meritorious. We also hold, however, that when an action with potential adverse effects on the environment is part of an integrated project designed to balance conflicting environmental goals within a subsection of a municipality that is ecologically unique, the potential cumulative impact of other proposed or pending projects must be considered pursuant to SEQRA before the action may be approved. Without this consideration, approval of the third ordinance enact by the City was arbitrary and capricious and must be declared null and void.

I.

The Pine Bush, partially within the City of Albany, contains the only remaining large pine barrens on inland sand dunes in the United States. Its unusual inland sand dune composition is the home of rare plant and animal species such as the endangered Karner Blue Butterfly (ECL § 11-0535) which survives on the blue lupine, a plant indigenous only to the pine barren. The record establishes that the Pine Bush has a number of distinct environmental characteristics worthy of protecting.

Recognizing this need for preservation but also desiring to expand commercial development into the area, on March 5, 1984, the City of Albany Common Council approved the first ordinance challenged in this proceeding, which was "intended to define commercial development of the area of the City known as the Pine Bush by insuring that its ecological integrity is maintained" (ordinance Number 7.11.84 § 1). The ordinance amended the zoning provisions of the City by providing for a new C-PB Commercial-Pine Bush classification allowing "[s]ingle-story office buildings or otherwise conforming to the land contour as determined and approved by the appropriate Site Plan Review Agency" (ordinance Number 7.11.84 § 3). No particular land was set aside for possible development under the ordinance. The second challenged ordinance, approved on July 2, 1984, created the Pine Bush Site Plan Review District encompassing approximately 550 acres of undeveloped Pine Bush land and delineated a site plan review process with specific criteria to be used by the Site Plan Review Agency in passing upon applications for certain uses within the district. The final challenge is to Common Council's approval of defendant-respondent Anderson's application to change the zoning classification of 29.9 acres of undeveloped land within the Pine Bush to C-PB Commercial-Pine Bush enabling Anderson to construct a five-building, two-story office complex. The City approved the change following consideration of a final environmental impact statement and a determination that any adverse environmental effects had been minimized to the maximum extent practicable (6 NYCRR 617.9[c] ).

Plaintiffs-petitioners, a not-for-profit corporation whose purpose is to "promote the preservation of Albany's unique and beautiful pine barrens", several of the corporation's officers, local homeowners' associations and individual homeowners and taxpayers, commenced this combined declaratory judgment action and article 78 proceeding on March 5, 1985 alleging that various SEQRA violations in the enactment of the challenged ordinances rendered them illegal, that the zone change for Anderson's property constituted spot zoning, and that the creation of C-PB Commercial-Pine Bush zone involved an improper delegation of authority to the Site Plan Review Board. Special Term granted all the relief requested and declared the ordinances null and void. With respect to the Anderson property in particular, the court held that Common Council's failure to consider the cumulative impact of other pending developments in the Pine Bush when it reviewed Anderson's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) violated the provisions of SEQRA. Upon reargument, the court adher to its original decision and declined to dismiss the first two causes of action on the ground that they were barred by the four-month Statute of Limitations (CPLR 217). Special Term concluded that the ordinances challenged were purely legislative acts and that the applicable Statute of Limitations was six years (CPLR 213[1] ).

The Appellate Division modified, 117 A.D.2d 267, 502 N.Y.S.2d 540. The Third Department agreed that the City's failure to address the cumulative environmental impact of pending projects in the Pine Bush was fatal to Anderson's application. However, the court held that the applicable statutory period for challenging SEQRA violations was four months and, thus, held that the second cause of action concerning the creation of the Pine Bush Site Plan Review District was time-barred. The court held that the first cause of action challenging the C-PB Commercial-Pine Bush classification was timely because it had not been ripe for review until the classification was applied to a particular piece of land. Nonetheless, the court declined to reach the substantive challenge as unnecessary.

II.

In order to determine the Statute of Limitations applicable to a particular declaratory judgment action, the court must "examine the substance of that action to identify the relationship out of which the claim arises and the relief sought" (Solnick v. Whalen, 49 N.Y.2d 224, 229, 425 N.Y.S.2d 68, 401 N.E.2d 190). If the court determines that the underlying dispute can be or could have been resolved through a form of action or proceeding for which a specific limitation period is statutorily provided, that limitation period governs the declaratory judgment action (Press v. County of Monroe, 50 N.Y.2d 695, 431 N.Y.S.2d 394, 409 N.E.2d 870; Solnick v. Whalen, supra, 49 N.Y.2d at 230, 425 N.Y.S.2d 68, 401 N.E.2d 190; see, Koerner v. State of New York, 62 N.Y.2d 442, 446-447, 478 N.Y.S.2d 584, 467 N.E.2d 232). Here, the question is whether the four-month Statute of Limitations period applicable to article 78 proceedings should be invoked.

The general rule is that an article 78 proceeding is unavailable to challenge the validity of a legislative act such as a zoning ordinance (Matter of Voelckers v. Guelli, 58 N.Y.2d 170, 176, 460 N.Y.S.2d 8, 446 N.E.2d 764; Matter of Merced v. Fisher, 38 N.Y.2d 557, 559, 381 N.Y.S.2d 817, 345 N.E.2d 288; Peekskill Suburbs v. Morabito, 74 A.D.2d 843, 425 N.Y.S.2d 389, affd. 51 N.Y.2d 941, 434 N.Y.S.2d 989, 415 N.E.2d 977). However, when the challenge is directed not at the substance of the ordinance but at the procedures followed in its enactment, it is maintainable in an article 78 proceeding (Matter of Voelckers v. Guelli, supra, 58 N.Y.2d at 177, 460 N.Y.S.2d 8, 446 N.E.2d 764).

With the exception of the challenge to the first ordinance based upon vagueness and an overbroad delegation of authority, regardless of the form in which plaintiffs-petitioners have chosen to couch their action, their challenges to the three ordinances primarily involve the City's failure to follow SEQRA. As such, those causes of action were maintainable in an article 78 proceeding and should have been commenced within four months (CPLR 217; Matter of Connell v. Town Bd., 67 N.Y.2d 896, 501 N.Y.S.2d 813, 492 N.E.2d 1229; Lai Chun Chan Jin v. Board of Estimate, 101 A.D.2d 97, 474 N.Y.S.2d 504, appeal dismissed 63 N.Y.2d 675; Weinberg, Practice Commentary, McKinney's Cons.Laws of N.Y., Book 17 1/2, ECL C8-1019:6, at 79; see, Matter of Tri-County Taxpayers Assn. v. Town Bd., 55 N.Y.2d 41, 447 N.Y.S.2d 699, 432 N.E.2d 592; Matter of Niagara Recycling v. Town Bd., 83 A.D.2d 335, 443 N.Y.S.2d 951 [Hancock, Jr., J.], affd. 56 N.Y.2d 859, 453 N.Y.S.2d 427, 438 N.E.2d 1142; Matter of Brew v. Hess, 124 A.D.2d 962, 508 N.Y.S.2d 712). Accordingly, we agree with the Appellate Division that the second cause of action challenging the creation of the Pine Bush Site Plan Review District was untimely.

By the same reasoning, contrary to the view of the Appellate Division, the action attacking the alleged SEQRA violations in the classification of C-PB Commercial-Pine Bush was not commenced in a timely manner. Common Council's creation of this classification, with its concurrent announcement of a policy to commercially develop the Pine Bush in an ecologically sound manner, constituted an "action" within the meaning of SEQRA, in that it committed the City to future commercial development of the Pine Bush (6 NYCRR 617.2[b][2] ). SEQRA review was required before any specific applications were needlessly studied at great expense to both the City and the developers (6 NYCRR 617.1[c]; cf., Matter of Programming & Sys. v. New York State Urban Dev. Corp., 61 N.Y.2d 738, 472...