Village of Canajoharie v. Planning Board of Town of Florida

• Decision Date: 25 June 2009
• Docket Number: 506294.
• Citation: 2009 NY Slip Op 05249,63 A.D.3d 1498,882 N.Y.S.2d 526
• Parties: In the Matter of VILLAGE OF CANAJOHARIE, Appellant, v. PLANNING BOARD OF THE TOWN OF FLORIDA et al., Respondents.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

63 A.D.3d 1498

882 N.Y.S.2d 526

2009 NY Slip Op 05249

In the Matter of VILLAGE OF CANAJOHARIE, Appellant, v. PLANNING BOARD OF THE TOWN OF FLORIDA et al., Respondents.

506294.

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Third Department.

Decided June 25, 2009.

Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Catena, J.), entered October 21, 2008 in Montgomery County, which dismissed petitioner's application, in a combined proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78 and action for declaratory judgment, to review, among other things, a determination of respondent Planning Board of the Town of Florida approving the site plan application of respondents Hero Group, Inc. and Beech-Nut Nutrition Group.

McCARTHY, J.

In 2007, Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation (sued as Beech-Nut Nutrition Group)¹ made a business decision to consolidate operations from its three existing facilities to one central location. At this time, Beech-Nut operated two manufacturing facilities in Montgomery County—one in the Village of Canajoharie and one in the Town of Fort Plain—and a corporate headquarters in Missouri. While Beech-Nut considered many options, including the option of relocating outside of New York, it ultimately decided to consolidate operations within New York and indeed within Montgomery County; that is, it endeavored to build a new facility in a business park owned by respondent Montgomery County Industrial Development Agency (hereinafter IDA) and located in the Town of Florida, Montgomery County.

To that end, Beech-Nut sought and received funding for the project from respondent Empire State Development Corporation and thereafter enlisted the assistance of the IDA in making the project feasible. In its application to the IDA, Beech-Nut detailed its corporate decision to consolidate and relocate (i.e., to preserve its competitive position, meet expanding production needs and maintain compliance with stringent manufacturing and safety requirements) and further detailed the infeasibility of consolidating and expanding at the Canajoharie facility itself (i.e., the 115-year-old facility was in great need of modernization, had recently been damaged by a flood and had an extremely limited physical footprint). Beech-Nut further detailed its exploration of relocating its operations outside of New York.

In the meantime, over the course of many months, review of the project under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (see ECL art 8 [hereinafter SEQRA]) proceeded, with respondent Planning Board of the Town of Florida acting as the lead agency (see ECL 8-0111 [6]; 6 NYCRR 617.2 [u]). In addition, a payment in lieu of tax (hereinafter PILOT) agreement and lease were eventually entered into between Beech-Nut and the IDA providing additional financial assistance for the project. Following a May 15, 2008 special meeting of the Planning Board, the project went forward and construction commenced.²

Petitioner commenced this combined declaratory judgment action/CPLR article 78 proceeding alleging various violations of SEQRA and the General Municipal Law. In addition to seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction enjoining any work on the project, petitioner sought a declaration that the site plan approval and findings statements for the project were invalid, that the PILOT and lease agreements were invalid and that the financing assistance package from Empire State Development was invalid. Following a hearing, the request for a temporary restraining order and injunctive relief was denied. Thereafter, Supreme Court dismissed the entire petition on various alternative grounds, including standing, prompting this appeal. We now affirm.

In its amended petition, petitioner alleged that the Planning Board failed to comply with SEQRA by illegally segmenting the abandonment of the facility in Canajoharie from the relocation project, by failing to take a hard look at the alternative of either no action or renovation of the facility in Canajoharie and by failing to take a hard look at measures to mitigate adverse environmental impacts on it. The amended petition further alleges that the IDA and Empire State Development, as involved agencies in the relocation project, also violated SEQRA. We find that all claims based on alleged SEQRA violations were properly dismissed on standing grounds.

Generally, standing to challenge compliance with SEQRA turns on a showing by the challenger that it has sustained an injury-in-fact different from that of the public at large and one that falls within the zone of interest protected by SEQRA (see Society of Plastics Indus. v County of Suffolk, 77 NY2d 761, 777 [1991]). A municipality, such as petitioner, "must demonstrate how its personal or property rights, either personally or in a representative capacity, will be directly and specifically affected apart from any damage suffered by the public at large" (Matter of Saratoga Lake Protection & Improvement Dist. v Department of Pub. Works of City of Saratoga Springs, 46 AD3d 979, 983 [2007], lv denied 10 NY3d 706 [2008] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]). Moreover, with respect to SEQRA claims in particular, a challenger "must demonstrate that it will suffer an injury that is environmental and not solely economic in nature" (Matter of Mobil Oil Corp. v Syracuse Indus. Dev. Agency, 76 NY2d 428, 433 [1990]).

Even viewing the allegations in the amended petition in a light most favorable to it (see e.g. Matter of Powers v De Groodt, 43 AD3d 509, 513 [2007]), petitioner failed to make any showing that it would indeed suffer a specific or direct environmental harm as a result of the proposed project (see Matter of Mobil Oil Corp. v Syracuse Indus. Dev. Agency, 76 NY2d at 433-434).³ Rather, the amended petition contains nothing more than allegations of potential...