Majority
OPINION OF THE COURT
In Society of Plastics Indus. v County of Suffolk ( 77 NY2d 761 [1991]), this Court examined the law of standing, and set forth a framework for deciding whether parties have standing to challenge governmental action in land use matters generally, and under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (ECL art 8 [SEQRA]), specifically. We held that “the plaintiff, for standing purposes, must show that it would suffer direct harm, injury that is in some way different from that of the public at large” ( 77 NY2d at 774 ). This appeal gives us the opportunity to elucidate and further address the “special injury” requirement of standing (id. at 778).
L
The Village of Painted Post, in Steuben County, New York, is located at the confluence of the Cohocton, Tioga and Chemung Rivers. Underlying the confluence of these rivers is the Corning aquifer, which is the principal drinking water supply of several municipalities, including the Village. In February 2012, the Board of Trustees of the Village adopted a resolution to enter into a surplus water sale agreement with respondent SWEPI, LP, a subsidiary of Shell Oil Co., which operates gas wells in Tioga County, Pennsylvania. The surplus water sale agreement provided for the sale to SWEPI, LP of 314,000,000 gallons of water in increments of up to one million gallons per day from the Village water system with an option to increase the amount by an additional 500,000 gallons per day.
Construction of the water loading facility began in April 2012, and in June 2012, petitioners commenced this CPLR article 78 proceeding against the Village; Painted Post Development, LLC; SWEPI, LP; and Wellsboro seeking an order (1) annulling the Village’s Type II determination for the water sale agreement; (2) annulling the Village’s negative declaration for the lease of the rail loading facility; (3) annulling the Village’s water sale agreement with SWEPI and the lease to Wellsboro; (4) requiring the Village to issue a positive declaration and complete an environmental impact statement for the totality of the plan rather than segmenting the water sale and the lease; (5) enjoining the Village from entering into the water sale and lease agreements until the Village complied with all federal and state laws; and (6) preliminarily enjoining any water ship
1 6 NYCRR 617.5 (c) (25) provides that actions for the "purchase or sale of furnishings, equipment or supplies, including surplus government property, other than the following: land, radioactive material, pesticides, herbicides, or other hazardous materials” are Type II actions that are not subject to review under SEQRA.
2 6 NYCRR 617.4 sets forth a non-exhaustive list of Type I actions and provides that "the fact that an action or project has been listed as a Type I action carries with it the presumption that it is likely to have a significant adverse impact on the environment and may require an [environmental impact statement]. For all individual actions which are Type I or Unlisted, the determination of significance must be made by comparing the impacts which may be reasonably expected to result from the proposed action with the criteria listed in section 617.7(c) of this Part” (6 NYCRR 617.4 [a] [1]).
As relevant here, petitioners asserted that the Village failed to comply with the strict procedural mandates of SEQRA, particularly that it (1) failed to consider significant adverse environmental impacts of the water withdrawals, (2) improperly claimed a Type II exemption for the water sale agreement, and (3) impermissibly segmented its review of the water sale agreement and the lease agreement. With respect to petitioner John Marvin (appellant here), the petition alleged that he is a longtime resident of the Village and resides “less than a block from the proposed rail loading facility, which is visible from his doorstep” and that he and his wife would be “adversely affected by the significant rail traffic and the increased noise and air contamination caused by the project.” Respondents answered and subsequently moved to dismiss the petition pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (3) and (7), asserting that petitioners lacked standing and failed to state a cause of action, and alternatively, moved for summary judgment pursuant to CPLR 3212. Petitioners opposed the motions, submitting, among other things, an affidavit of petitioner Marvin,[3] who stated that when the water trains began running, he “heard train noises frequently, sometimes every night” and that “[t]he noise was so loud it woke [him] up and kept [him] awake repeatedly.” Marvin further stated that the “noise was much louder than the noise from other trains that run through the [Vlillage” and he was concerned that the “increased train noise will adversely impact [his] quality of life and home value.”
Supreme Court searched the record and, in pertinent part, (1) granted summary judgment to petitioners insofar as it annulled (a) the Village’s resolutions designating the surplus water agreement as a Type II action, (b) the negative declaration as to the lease agreement, and (c) the Village Board’s resolutions approving the surplus water agreement and the lease agreement; (2) granted petitioners an injunction enjoining further water withdrawals pursuant to the surplus water
3 While the petition alleged that Marvin lives less than a block from the rail loading facility, he clarified in his affidavit that he lives one-half block from the railroad line that crosses his street, and a block and one half from the rail loading facility.
With respect to the individual petitioners, excepting Marvin, the court determined that they too alleged only general harm (i.e., disrupted traffic patterns, noise levels, and water quality) “no different than that experienced by the general public.” However, regarding petitioner Marvin, the court noted that he could see the water loading facility from his front porch, and concluded that Marvin’s allegation of “train noise newly introduced into his neighborhood ... is different than the noise suffered by the public in general.” The court reasoned that although Marvin did not “distinguish this noise from that of the previous train noises associated with the existing rail line or from the former industrial use of the area,” nevertheless,
“Marvin’s undifferentiated complaint of train noise, however, may be considered in the context of an industrial and rail facility which fell into disuse for a considerable period of time prior to construction of the subject project, and thus his complaint of rail noise is availing to show harm distinct from that suffered by the general public.”
Because Marvin had standing, the court did not dismiss the proceeding brought by the other petitioners who did not have standing. On the merits of the petition, the court held that the Village’s Type II designation of the water sale agreement was arbitrary and capricious and that the Village had improperly segmented the SEQRA review of the lease from the water sale agreement.
The Appellate Division ( 115 AD3d 1310 [2014]), unanimously (1) reversed the judgment on the law, (2) granted the Village’s and SWEPI’s motion, and (3) dismissed the petition as against them on the ground that Marvin lacked standing. The Court agreed with petitioners that “noise falls within the zone of interests sought to be protected by SEQRA” ( 115 AD3d at 1312 ). However, emphasizing that “Marvin raised no complaints concerning noise from the transloading facility itself” ( 115
IL
We held in Society of Plastics that “[i]n land use matters . . . the plaintiff, for standing purposes, must show that it would suffer direct harm, injury that is in some way different from that of the public at large” ( 77 NY2d at 774 ). Applying that test in Matter of Save the Pine Bush, Inc. v Common Council of City of Albany ( 13 NY3d 297 [2009]), this Court held that petitioners, who alleged “repeated, not rare or isolated use” of the Pine Bush recreation area, had demonstrated standing “by showing that the threatened harm of which petitioners complain will affect them differently from ‘the public at large’ ” ( 13 NY3d at 305 ).
The Appellate Division, in concluding that petitioner Marvin lacked standing, applied an overly restrictive analysis of the requirement to show harm “different from that of the public at large,” reasoning that because other Village residents also lived along the train line, Marvin did not suffer noise impacts different from his neighbors. We said in Society of Plastics that
“[t]he doctrine grew out of a recognition that, while directly impacting particular sites, governmental action affecting land use in another sense may aggrieve a much broader community. The location of a gas station may, for example, directly affect its immediate neighbors but indirectly affect traffic patterns, noise levels, air quality and aesthetics throughout a wide area” ( 77 NY2d at 774-775 ).
This example is distinctly different from the situation here where more than one resident is directly impacted by the noise created from increased train traffic. That more than one person may be harmed does not defeat standing, as we found in Save the Pine Bush where we held that the nine individual petitioners who alleged that they lived near the site of the proposed project and “use[d] the Pine Bush for recreation and to study
The number of people who are affected by the challenged action is not dispositive of standing. This Court recognized in Matter of Association for a Better Long Is., Inc. v New York State Dept. of Envtl. Conservation ( 23 NY3d 1 [2014]) that standing rules should not be “heavy-handed,” and declared that we are “reluctant to apply [standing] principles in an overly restrictive manner where the result would be to completely shield a particular action from judicial review” ( 23 NY3d at 6 [citation omitted]). Applying the Appellate Division’s reasoning, because there are multiple residents who are directly impacted, no resident of the Village would have standing to challenge the actions of the Village, notwithstanding that the train noise fell within the zone of interest of SEQRA. That result would effectively insulate the Village’s actions from any review and thereby run afoul of our pronouncement that the standing rule should not be so restrictive as to avoid judicial review.
Here, as in Save the Pine Bush, Marvin alleges injuries that are “real and different from the injury most members of the public face” ( 13 NY3d at 306 ). Thus, his allegation about train noise caused by the increased train traffic keeping him awake at night, even without any express differentiation between the train noise running along the tracks and the noise from the transloading facility, would be sufficient to confer standing.[4]
4 Although Marvin’s affidavit sets forth a generalized complaint of train noise, we see no reason to conclude, as did the Appellate Division, that he is *312 only claiming noise from trains running on the tracks, and not from the trains in the loading facility. Given his proximity to the facility and his allegations, we may conclude that he was hearing noise from the facility, as well as the noise from the trains running along the tracks. Additionally, the verified petition references an engineer’s report issued prior to the construction of the facility that states that the loaded cars will be heavy, and that moving cars loaded with more than 96 tons of weight on and off sidings can be expected to result in significant noise from coupling and uncoupling cars, running the diesel engines required to move the railcars and squealing wheels. In sum, Marvin’s allegations, read in the context of the petition, sufficiently set forth harm caused not only by the noise of trains running along the tracks, but the trains in the loading facility.
Chief Judge Lippman and Judges Pigott, Rivera, Stein and Fahey concur.
Order reversed, with costs, and matter remitted to the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, for consideration of issues raised but not determined on the appeal to that Court.
Cases cited
- Society of Plastics Industry, Inc. v. County of Suffolk 77 NY2d 761 p. 302, p. 303, p. 304, p. 305, p. 306
- McCartney v. Dormitory Authority 5 AD3d 1090 p. 302
- Save Our Main Street Buildings v. Greene County Legislature 293 AD2d 907 p. 302, p. 303
- Buerger v. Town of Grafton 235 AD2d 984 p. 302, p. 305
- Long Island Pine Barrens Society, Inc. v. Planning Board of the Town 213 AD2d 484 p. 302, p. 305
- Industrial Liaison Committee v. Williams 131 AD2d 205 p. 302
- Industrial Liaison Committee of Niagara Falls Area Chamber of Commerce v. Williams 72 NY2d 137 p. 302
- Dairylea Cooperative, Inc. v. Walkley 38 NY2d 6 p. 302
- Douglaston Civic Ass'n v. Galvin 36 NY2d 1 p. 302
- Sun-Brite Car Wash, Inc. v. Board of Zoning & Appeals 69 NY2d 406 p. 302, p. 303
- Sierra Club v. Morton 405 US 727 p. 302, p. 305
- City of Buffalo v. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation 184 Misc 2d 243 p. 302
- Town of Henrietta v. Department of Environmental Conservation 76 AD2d 215 p. 302
- H.O.M.E.S. v. New York State Urban Development Corp. 69 AD2d 222 p. 302
- Rye Town/King Civic Ass'n v. Town of Rye 82 AD2d 474 p. 302
- Schenectady Chemicals, Inc. v. Flacke 83 AD2d 460 p. 302
- Coalition for Future of Stony Brook Village v. Reilly 299 AD2d 481 p. 302
- Tri-County Taxpayers Ass'n v. Town Board of Queensbury 55 NY2d 41 p. 302
- Akpan v. Koch 75 NY2d 561 p. 302, p. 304
- Cross Westchester Development Corp. v. Town Board of the Town of Greenburgh 141 AD2d 796 p. 303, p. 306
- City Council of Watervliet v. Town Board of Colonie 3 NY3d 508 p. 303, p. 305, p. 306
- Association for a Better Long Island, Inc. v. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation 23 NY3d 1 p. 303, p. 305, p. 311
- Save the Pine Bush, Inc. v. Common Council 13 NY3d 297 p. 303, p. 304, p. 305, p. 310
- Oates v. Village of Watkins Glen 290 AD2d 758 p. 303
- Gallahan v. Planning Board of Ithaca 307 AD2d 684 p. 303
- Finger Lakes Zero Waste Coalition, Inc. v. Martens 95 AD3d 1420 p. 303
- Har Enterprises v. Town of Brookhaven 74 NY2d 524 p. 303, p. 305
- Virginia v. Maryland 540 US 56 p. 303
- American Sugar Refining Co. v. Waterfront Commission 55 NY2d 11 p. 303
- Balbuena v. IDR Realty LLC 6 NY3d 338 p. 303
- New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Insurance 514 US 645 p. 303
- Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc. 505 US 504 p. 303
- Ray v. Atlantic Richfield Co. 435 US 151 p. 303
- Dreikausen v. Zoning Board of Appeals 98 NY2d 165 p. 303
- Weeks Woodlands Ass'n v. Dormitory Authority 95 AD3d 747 p. 303
- Friends of Pine Bush v. Planning Board 86 AD2d 246 p. 303
- Nobu Next Door, LLC v. Fine Arts Housing, Inc. 4 NY3d 839 p. 303
- Save The Pine Bush, Inc. v. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation 289 AD2d 636 p. 303
- Save Pine Bush, Inc. v. City Engineer 220 AD2d 871 p. 303
- Caprari v. Town of Colesville 199 AD2d 705 p. 303
- Riverkeeper, Inc. v. Planning Board 9 NY3d 219 p. 304
- Jackson v. New York State Urban Development Corp. 67 NY2d 400 p. 304, p. 306
- Eadie v. Town Board 7 NY3d 306 p. 304
- Spitzer v. Farrell 100 NY2d 186 p. 304
- White v. Westage Development Group, Inc. 191 AD2d 687 p. 304
- Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. v. Public Service Commission 137 Misc 2d 235 p. 304
- Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. v. Public Service Commission 138 AD2d 63 p. 304
- DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Spitzer 7 NY3d 653 p. 304
- Weingarten v. Board of Trustees of the New York City Teachers' Retirement System 98 NY2d 575 p. 304
- Power Authority v. Williams 60 NY2d 315 p. 304
- Erie Boulevard Hydropower, L.P. v. Stuyvesant Falls Hydro Corp. 30 AD3d 641 p. 304
- Fourth Branch Associates v. Department of Environmental Conservation 146 Misc 2d 334 p. 304
- Brighton Residents v. MW Properties, LLC 304 AD2d 53 p. 304
- WEOK Broadcasting Corp. v. Planning Board 79 NY2d 373 p. 305
- Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Board of Estimate 72 NY2d 674 p. 305
- E.F.S. Ventures Corp. v. Foster 71 NY2d 359 p. 305
- Chinese Staff & Workers Ass'n v. City of New York 68 NY2d 359 p. 305
- Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. 272 US 365 p. 305
- Udell v. Haas 21 NY2d 463 p. 305
- Leone v. Brewer 259 NY 386 p. 305
- Whitridge v. Park 100 Misc 367 p. 305
- Rice v. Van Vranken 132 Misc 82 p. 305
- Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency 549 US 497 p. 305
- United States v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures 412 US 669 at 687-688 p. 305, p. 311
- Federal Election Commission v. Akins 524 US 11 p. 305
- Sierra Club v. Village of Painted Post 115 AD3d 1310 p. 309