Dan Richmond, Lee Lefkowitz, and Kasey Brenner obtained the dismissal of challenges under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) to the Town of Ramapo Planning Board’s site plan and subdivision approvals for the 224-unit Pascack Ridge Project. In a Decision and Order, dated January 17, 2023, the Honorable Paul Marx adopted Z&S’s argument that the petitioners’ procedural challenge failed because a SEQRA “Lead Agency’s failure to formally designate an agency as an ‘Involved Agency’ is immaterial if the agency is actually involved in the environmental review.” In addition, the Court rejected the challenge to the adequacy of the SEQRA review, finding that the substantive issues raised by the petitioners fell “within the scope of the areas looked at by the Town Board,” which served as Lead Agency for the SEQRA review, such that “further SEQRA review by the Planning Board would have been redundant.”
A copy of the Decision & Order is below.
