NY Appellate Court Upholds Floating Zone for Biomass Gasification-to-Energy District Finding Compliance with both SEQRA and Municipal Home Rule Law

A NY Appellate Court overturned the trial court and upheld a local law establishing a floating zone for a biomass gasification-to-energy district, finding that the Town complied with the State Environmental Quality Review Act by taking a hard look at the environmental impacts and issuing a findings statement the concluded that “consistent with social, economic, and other essential considerations, from among the reasonable alternatives available, the proposed project and zoning amendment avoided or minimized adverse environmental impacts to the maximum extent practicable by incorporating, as conditions, those mitigative measures that were identified as practicable in the FEIS.”   With respect to a challenge that the local zoning law violated the Municipal Home Rule because it violated a requirement that the title of the law only address one subject, the Court said that the title, “A Local Law Amending the Zoning Law of the Town of Montgomery, Orange County, New York to Create a Biomass Gasification-to-Energy District Floating zone and to Enact Regulations Pertaining Thereto,” the Court dismissed this finding that the components of the title were “naturally connected, and the title apprised the reader of what may reasonably be expected to be found in the statute.”

Highview Estates of Orange County, Inc. v Town Board of Town of Montgomery, 2012 WL 6029039 (N.Y.A.D. 2 Dept. 12/5/2012).

The opinion can be accessed at: http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2012/2012_08309.htm