Permitting reform is finally on the table in New York. In her State of the State speech, Governor Hochul proposed the most significant reform to New York’s environmental review law (SEQRA) since it was enacted in 1975. The proposal would exempt housing projects of up to 250 units in New York City (500 in high-density areas), and up to 100 units elsewhere, from SEQRA review entirely. It would also impose statutory timelines on the environmental review process as a whole for the first time: one year to determine whether a full environmental impact statement is needed, two years to complete one. Given the scale of the proposal, it seems like a good time to give a brief explainer on what SEQRA is, what it requires, its structural flaws, and whether the proposed reforms are likely to succeed.
To start, the basics. SEQRA requires every state and local agency in New York to assess the environmental consequences of its actions before approving them. SEQRA borrowed its statutory structure from the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, but with three major departures. It applies to local agencies, not just state ones. As a result, the hundreds of municipal planning boards and other public authorities that dot the state are all subject to environmental review obligations. It adopts a lower triggering threshold: review is required when an action “may have” a significant adverse impact, a probabilistic standard that forces agencies to act on possibility rather than certainty. And it embeds a substantive mandate that NEPA lacks. ECL section 8-0109 requires agencies to certify that adverse environmental effects will be “minimized or avoided to the maximum extent practicable.” This is the largest conceptual departure from NEPA, which federal courts read as purely procedural. New York’s statute, at least on its face, demands more.
