How Environmental Review can generate car-induced pollution: a Case Study.Michael Lewyn Touro College - Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center 2014

International Business and Development, University of Parma.

Professor: Paolo Fabbri

Students:

Jessica Gallani

Olesea Mancas

Edina Sznida

A BRIEF GUIDE TO SEQRA

NEPA: 1970 National Environmental Policy; it is mainly focused on actions affecting the quality of human environment.

EIS: Environmental Impact Statement (federal actions impacting on environment).

SEQRA: 1975 little NEPA status; it encompasses a wider definition of environment.

- It covers the private sector.

- It considers both environmental and social impacts of government actions on environment.

Harmful consequences: SEQRA can delay “infill development”.

SEQRA AND INFILL DEVELOPMENT

“Chinese Staff I” vs “Chinese Staff II”: is EIS necessary?

SEQRA may burden infill development more than greenfield development.

NIMBY resistance to development.

WHY SEQRA’S BIAS IS ENVIRONMENTALLY HARMFUL

1. How SEQRA Makes infill More Difficult

- SEQRA rarely prevents development that a city wants to approve.

- SEQRA adds costs to development, meaning that make infill especially costly.

Why Making Infill More Difficult Is Environmentally Harmful

2. Why Making Infill More Difficult Is Environmentally Harmful

- Infill development requires less driving, more infill development means less pollution, and SEQRA discourages infill development.

- SEQRA discourages new residential development. Thus, SEQRA may actually increase rents and other housing prices, thus creating environmental damage by its own criteria.

Solutions I.

California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA):

• Transit Priority Project

• The project must:

a) be no larger than eight acres or two hundred dwelling units.b) be served by existing utilities.c) have buildings fifteen percent more energy-efficient than required

under current law.d) achieve twenty-five percent less water use than the average

household in its region.e) provide one of the following: a five acres of open space or a

significant amount of low or moderate-income housing.

Solutions II.

More Aggressive Reforms:

a) Making SEQRA less burdensome by exempting local zoning decisions from it.

b) Excluding socio-economic impacts from the statute’s definition of “environment”, thus eliminating review of the social effects of projects.

Conclusion

Purpose of SEQRA: to protect the environment by requiring the government to consider the harmful environmental impacts of its actions.

BUT! SEQRA creates its own harmful environmental impacts.

Greenfield development may be less likely to require an EIS or lead to litigation over the adequacy of an EIS.