South Bronx Unite! v. New York City Industrial Development Agency

Local residents and community organizations challenged various governmental actions that facilitated the relocation of a grocery delivery service’s operations from Queens to the Bronx in New York City. Among other claims, the petitioners-plaintiffs alleged that environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) had been inadequate, including with respect to consideration of climate change. The court was not persuaded by the challengers’ assertions of inadequacies in the methodologies employed in the environmental review, which found that the project would result in fewer vehicle trips per day than a fully built-out land use plan that had been studied in a 1993 environmental impact statement.  With respect to the challengers’ allegations regarding the lack of consideration of greenhouse gas emissions, the court concluded without discussion that the respondents had established that SEQRA did not require consideration of greenhouse gas emissions in the circumstances presented by this project.