Elizabeth Street Garden, Inc. v. City of New York

The New York Court of Appeals upheld the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s (HPD’s) negative declaration under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act for a seven-story building containing affordable apartments for seniors that would include a 0.15-acre publicly accessible open space. The Court of Appeals found that HPD identified appropriate areas of concern, took the required “hard look” at them, and made its determination that the project—which would be located on a City-owned land leased to an individual who previously used the parcel as a green space/sculpture garden and allowed public access for a limited number of hours each week—would not result in a significant adverse impact on the environment. The court further concluded that “[t]he argument that HPD failed to take a hard look at public policy in the area of sustainability and the impact of climate change … lacks merit,” noting that the project would be built to Passive House standards, and that “[t]he agency is not required to address ‘every conceivable environmental impact’ … and petitioners point to no published standards for assessing climate change concerns in a project of this type in general, let alone in the specific areas of urban heat and stormwater runoff,” which were concerns raised by the petitioners.