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Enforcement of Obligations Imposed In SEQRA Findings Statements

By Stewart E. Sterk
January 01, 2022

When, at the culmination of environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), a municipality resolves to require a developer to ameliorate environmental impacts, can anyone other than the municipality itself enforce the requirement? Most SEQRA cases involve attacks on an agency's compliance with SEQRA procedures, but in Mutual Aid Association v. City of Yonkers, NYLJ 11/15/21, p. 21, the Second Department faced a challenge to the municipality's follow through long after the SEQRA review was completed. Because the court resolved the case by concluding that the municipality had not, in fact, imposed a requirement on the developer, the court avoided the more basic question: can a municipality or other lead agency impose a requirement and then decide not to enforce it.

The Mutual Aid Association Case

The case involves obligations supposedly imposed on the developer of Ridge Hill, an 81-acre mixed use residential and commercial development in the City of Yonkers. In 2003, the developer sought zoning amendments and site plan approval to allow the project to go forward. The developer's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) concluded that to mitigate the project's impact on fire protection, "the Yonkers Fire Department may need to increase its current staffing and equipment as well as consider the construction of a new fire station." The Yonkers City Council accepted a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) in May, 2005. After public hearings and public comments, the Council, in December 2005, adopted a Statement of Findings indicating that the impact on fire protection "will be accomplished by improvements to the infrastructure and the addition of new fire fighting and supervisory personnel." Seven months later, the council adopted another resolution with a supplemental findings statement, which included the following language:

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