Phillips Lytle counsels clients through environmental review processes pursuant to both the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and New York’s State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). Phillips Lytle is involved in environmental reviews on a daily basis, whether it is zoning matters which we handle for clients all over New York State or large, complex projects such as a new NFL stadium. We take a team management approach with clients to expedite the preparation of environmental studies that include draft Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and final EISs, and we have extensive experience with Generic EISs (GEIS). These cost-effective approaches allow for timely, yet thorough, environmental reviews, while minimizing the likelihood of any successful subsequent legal challenge.
When it comes to SEQRA compliance in particular, we understand that:
Our attorneys are intimately familiar with the SEQRA regulations, the SEQRA Handbook, Environmental Assessment Forms (short and full), the EAF Workbooks, and relevant court decisions. Our team emphasizes strict compliance with the procedural aspects of SEQRA, while ensuring that there is a comprehensive administrative record to support the Determination of Significance. In fact, our attorneys have been leading seminars on the environmental review process for more than twenty years. In addition, acting as special counsel, we have assisted a number of governmental and quasi-governmental agencies through particularly complex and problematic environmental reviews on a timely and cost-effective basis. We have even been successful at using the Environmental Impact Review process to jumpstart projects that were otherwise stalled.
Skilled Guidance Throughout the Environmental Review Process
SEQRA requires that certain projects, known as “Type I Actions” in New York State, undergo a coordinated review among all of the state and local government agencies responsible for approving or funding the project. Phillips Lytle’s SEQRA practice includes handling complex, coordinated reviews between dozens of state and local agencies on behalf of both agencies and developers. We assist clients with determining whether a coordinated review is required, preparing lead agencies notices required by law, and expediting coordination to ensure that state and local agencies work quickly to determine the environmental impact of a project.
Throughout the coordinated review process, our team works closely with project consultants to respond to agency comments and concerns to avoid delays. Our expertise has assisted clients in working through the SEQRA process with an eye toward speed-to-market.
The preparation of an EIS is a complex and critical phase of environmental review that includes mandatory public participation, and must carefully assess and document potentially significant adverse environmental impacts and potential mitigation measures associated with site-specific projects or actions. Our attorneys have extensive experience drafting EISs and we regularly counsel and guide project sponsors, agencies and development teams on all aspects of the preparation of conventional and supplemental EISs. We provide our clients with strategic front-end counsel at the earliest phases of project design to minimize or eliminate potential environmental impacts to curtail the scope of issues that must be addressed during the EIS process. In some cases, careful project design and early implementation of mitigation measures may eliminate the need to prepare an EIS altogether.
Phillips Lytle attorneys also have extensive experience with the preparation at GEISs for our clients’ larger-scale, longer-term, and phased developments. We provide strategic counsel to focus the preparation of a GEIS on cumulative, secondary, and long-term impacts to assess a broader range of factors than considered in the conventional EIS process. Importantly, we understand the need to leverage the GEIS process for our clients so that subsequent site-specific actions may proceed without the necessity of additional environmental review at later stages of development.
Our SEQRA Team developed a graduate level course for the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning based on SEQRA. Students in the Masters of Urban Planning, Masters of Real Estate Development and Sustainability Programs learn the intricacies of SEQRA during a full semester course.
The SEQRA regulations were drafted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), but we know that not every project or scenario fits neatly into the review process spelled out in the law. Our team’s extensive knowledge of SEQRA and unparalleled experience litigating SEQRA gives us the know-how to advise clients when handbooks and NYSDEC cookbooks are silent. We have worked with clients to address large-scale project changes over a decade after SEQRA was completed, coordinated the preparation of supplemental environmental impact statements, and worked with clients to find creative, defensible solutions to problems posed by SEQRA.
Phillips Lytle has one of the most sophisticated and successful SEQRA segmented review practices across all of New York State. Segmentation is the division of environmental review of a land-use action such that various activities or stages of the development are addressed under SEQRA as though they were independent, unrelated activities. While often held out to be controversial, it is fully permissible under SEQRA for certain circumstances, and can be a powerful tool for development of complex, multi-phase projects which require imminent action and adaptability to evolving social, technical and economic conditions.
Our attorneys conduct dozens of segmented reviews per year, ensuring security and success for our clients with sophisticated, large-scale, land use development projects. Our expertise and track record in shepherding and defending permissible segmented SEQRA review is simply unparalleled throughout New York State.
Our team frequently defends SEQRA reviews in Article 78 proceedings challenging the validity or adequacy of the environmental review process. To maximize our likelihood of success, our land use lawyers collaborate with members from our litigation team to ensure a strategic, well-planned, and ultimately successful defense of SEQRA review.
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