Directly Regulated Landowners and SEQRA Standing:
Commentary on Matter of Seneca Meadows, Inc. v. Town of Seneca Falls

Citation: 2025 NY Slip Op 06961 (Ct App Dec. 16, 2025)

Court: New York Court of Appeals

Judge writing opinion: Rivera, J.

I. Introduction

The New York Court of Appeals’ decision in Matter of Seneca Meadows, Inc. v. Town of Seneca Falls clarifies a recurring and practically important question in New York environmental and land-use law: when does a regulated property owner have standing to challenge a municipality’s compliance with the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA)?

The case arises from a Town of Seneca Falls local law that effectively mandates the closure of the municipality’s sole solid waste facility—Seneca Meadows, Inc.’s large landfill—by December 31, 2025. The landfill operator claimed that the local law was adopted in violation of SEQRA because the Town Board failed to take the required “hard look” at the environmental consequences of forcing the facility’s closure.

Two core issues reached the Court of Appeals:

Whether Seneca Meadows, Inc. (SMI), as the landfill owner and operator whose facility is directly regulated by the local law, has standing to assert SEQRA violations without alleging a specific environmental injury.
Whether respondent-intervenors (a local citizen group and its officer) could revive a statute of limitations defense that the Appellate Division had already rejected in an earlier, nonfinal order.

The Court of Appeals:

Reaffirmed and extended its earlier holdings in Matter of Har Enters. v Town of Brookhaven and Gernatt Asphalt Prods. v Town of Sardinia, holding that when a governmental action directly regulates or targets a particular property, the owner of that property has standing to raise SEQRA claims without alleging any distinct environmental harm.
Declined to review the statute of limitations issue at this stage because, procedurally, its jurisdiction under CPLR 5601 (d) extended only to the particular Appellate Division order concerning standing, not to the prior 2021 limitations ruling.

The decision thus serves two important functions: (1) it clarifies and cements the special standing status of directly affected landowners in SEQRA litigation, and (2) it underscores the limits of appellate review in appeals taken as of right from a stipulation under CPLR 5601 (d).

II. Summary of the Opinion

A. Factual Background

Seneca Meadows, Inc. operates the only solid waste management facility in the Town of Seneca Falls. Residents had long complained of odors and other impacts from the landfill. In response, the Town Board enacted Local Law No. 3 of 2016 (the “2016 Law”), which:

Prohibited solid waste disposal facilities from operating in the Town; but
Grandfathered existing facilities with valid Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) permits until either (i) the permit expired, or (ii) December 31, 2025, whichever came first.

At a November 2016 public hearing, the Town Attorney correctly warned that the Board was required to perform a SEQRA review—taking a “hard look” at environmental impacts and determining environmental significance—before enacting the 2016 Law. Nevertheless, at that very hearing:

A Board member introduced a short Environmental Assessment Form (EAF) and a draft “negative declaration” (finding no significant adverse environmental impact), both prepared by her private attorney.
The other Board members had not seen these documents before the hearing.
The Board adopted the negative declaration on the spot and then passed the 2016 Law a week later.

This sequence created a classic SEQRA challenge: the allegation that the “hard look” requirement and reasoned elaboration were ignored in favor of a pre-cooked negative declaration.

B. Procedural History (Simplified)

First SMI action (February 2017). SMI filed a hybrid CPLR article 78/declaratory judgment action challenging the 2016 Law on SEQRA and non-SEQRA grounds (bias, substantive due process, arbitrary and capricious action).
Board rescinds the 2016 Law (May 2017). After an election and change in Board membership, the Town enacted Local Law No. 2 of 2017 (the “2017 Law”), repealing the 2016 Law. SMI then voluntarily discontinued its first action “without prejudice.”
Third-party challenge to the 2017 Law (2017). A different petitioner challenged the 2017 Law, and in October 2017 Supreme Court annulled the 2017 Law, thereby reinstating the 2016 Law.
Second (and current) SMI action (November 2017). SMI commenced the present article 78/declaratory judgment proceeding, again attacking the 2016 Law on SEQRA and related grounds.
Intervention by citizens’ group (2019). Dixie Lemmon and Concerned Citizens of Seneca County, Inc. (a nonprofit claiming to protect local environmental quality; Lemmon owned nearby property) intervened as respondents-defendants.
Supreme Court dismissal on statute of limitations (pre-2021). Supreme Court dismissed SMI’s action as time-barred, holding it was filed more than four months after the 2016 Law became effective.
Appellate Division 2021 decision (197 AD3d 932). The Fourth Department reversed, holding that SMI’s SEQRA claim was not time-barred. The Court of Appeals dismissed attempts to appeal that decision as nonfinal.
SMI summary judgment (2022). After remand, SMI moved for partial summary judgment on its SEQRA claim to invalidate the 2016 Law. The Town Board voted not to defend the law and did not oppose the motion. The intervenors did oppose, arguing SMI lacked SEQRA standing.
Supreme Court ruling on the merits (post-2022). Supreme Court:
- Rejected the standing objection, recognizing SMI’s standing as the directly affected property owner.
- Held that the Board failed to take a “hard look” at the environmental consequences of the landfill’s closure (especially secondary impacts), and declared the 2016 Law invalid.
Appellate Division 2024 decision (233 AD3d 1430). In a 3–2 decision:
- The majority reversed, holding SMI lacked SEQRA standing because it had not shown that it “had suffered or would suffer an environmental injury.”
- The dissent, relying on Har and Gernatt, argued that a property owner whose land is directly regulated need not show environmental injury to challenge SEQRA compliance and would have affirmed Supreme Court’s invalidation of the 2016 Law.
Path to the Court of Appeals (2025). The Court of Appeals dismissed SMI’s earlier appeal from the 2024 order as nonfinal. The parties then stipulated to discontinue SMI’s remaining, non-SEQRA claims “with prejudice,” making the case final. SMI appealed as of right under CPLR 5601 (d), thereby bringing up for review the 2024 Appellate Division order on standing.

C. Holdings of the Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals ruled as follows:

Standing. SMI has standing to pursue its SEQRA claim. When a local law directly regulates and restricts the use of a specific property, the owner of that property has standing to challenge the government’s SEQRA compliance without needing to allege a separate environmental injury. This follows from and reaffirms Matter of Har Enters. v Town of Brookhaven (74 NY2d 524) and Gernatt Asphalt Prods. v Town of Sardinia (87 NY2d 668).
Statute of limitations. The intervenor-respondents argued that SMI’s SEQRA challenge was time-barred. The Court declined to consider that argument:
- The statute-of-limitations issue had been decided in SMI’s favor by the Appellate Division in 2021.
- Under CPLR 5601 (d) and the principles described in Gilroy v American Broadcasting Co. (46 NY2d 580), the Court’s review in this appeal as of right extends only to the 2024 Appellate Division order (standing). It does not reach back to the 2021 order on limitations.
- Accordingly, the Court held that the statute of limitations argument “should not be reviewed at this juncture,” as the case will now proceed on the SEQRA merits before the Appellate Division.
Disposition. The Court reversed the 2024 Appellate Division order and remitted the case to the Fourth Department to consider the merits of SMI’s SEQRA challenge (the “hard look” and negative declaration issues), now that SMI’s standing has been confirmed.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents and Their Role in the Decision

1. Society of Plastics and Mobil Oil: The Baseline SEQRA Standing Rules

SEQRA standing in New York has long been governed by principles articulated in:

Society of Plastics Indus. v County of Suffolk, 77 NY2d 761 (1991)
Matter of Mobil Oil Corp. v Syracuse Indus. Dev. Agency, 76 NY2d 428 (1990)

From these decisions, the Court has distilled a general rule for SEQRA standing:

To have standing, a plaintiff must show (1) an injury-in-fact, and (2) that the injury falls within the zone of interest that SEQRA is designed to protect. This ordinarily means the plaintiff must demonstrate that it will suffer an environmental injury, not merely an economic one.

In Mobil Oil, the Court summarized the rule as requiring a showing that the plaintiff:

“will suffer an injury that is environmental and not solely economic in nature.”

Similarly, Society of Plastics emphasized that purely generalized grievances or solely economic harms do not suffice for SEQRA standing, which is concerned with environmental protection and informed decision-making.

2. Har Enterprises: The “Affected Property Owner” Exception

In Matter of Har Enters. v Town of Brookhaven, 74 NY2d 524 (1989), the Court recognized a critical qualification to the usual environmental-injury requirement.

In Har:

The town rezoned the petitioner’s property from commercial to residential use.
The landowner challenged the rezoning, alleging non-compliance with SEQRA.

The key point: the Court did not require the landowner to show any environmental injury. Instead, it held that where:

The petitioner is the owner of the property, and
The property is the very subject of the governmental action (e.g., rezoning that restricts its use),

the landowner’s legally cognizable interest in its own property is sufficient to confer standing to ensure proper SEQRA review. The Court stated:

“It seems evident that if any party should be held to have a sufficient interest to object—without having to allege some specific harm—it is an owner of property which is the subject of a contemplated rezoning.”

Thus, Har carves out a special rule: directly regulated landowners are effectively “preferred plaintiffs” under SEQRA—they can invoke SEQRA compliance without separately proving environmental damage to themselves.

3. Gernatt Asphalt: Extending Har to Resource Extraction and Use Restrictions

In Gernatt Asphalt Prods. v Town of Sardinia, 87 NY2d 668 (1996), the Court extended Har’s rationale.

There, the Town of Sardinia amended its zoning ordinance to ban mining throughout the town, effectively eliminating the plaintiff’s mining operations. The plaintiff alleged SEQRA violations.

Relying on Har, the Court held:

The plaintiff was directly impacted because the ordinance prohibited its intended use of its land (mining).
That direct impact, by itself, was enough for standing to challenge the town’s SEQRA compliance—no allegation of specific environmental harm was required.

In other words, Gernatt confirms that:

When government action directly restricts a landowner’s use of its property (as by rezoning or a categorical use prohibition), the landowner has standing under SEQRA without pleading environmental injury.

4. Gilroy and CPLR 5601(d): Limits on Review of Prior Nonfinal Orders

On the procedural side, the Court invokes Gilroy v American Broadcasting Co., 46 NY2d 580 (1979), and CPLR 5601 (d).

CPLR 5601 (d) allows an appeal as of right from a final order or judgment entered upon a stipulation intended to bring up for review a particular prior nonfinal determination of the Appellate Division. However, the Court has consistently held that:

The Court’s review power under CPLR 5601 (d) is narrowly circumscribed and reaches only the nonfinal Appellate Division order upon which the appeal is predicated.

That is, one cannot use a CPLR 5601 (d) appeal to re-open every interlocutory ruling in the case; it only allows review of the specifically designated Appellate Division order (here, the 2024 order on standing).

B. The Court’s Legal Reasoning

1. Standing: Applying Har and Gernatt to a Landfill Closure Law

The Court’s core substantive holding is straightforward: Har and Gernatt control, and they compel a finding of standing for SMI.

The logical steps are:

SEQRA’s general standing framework. Under Society of Plastics and Mobil Oil, a SEQRA plaintiff must show:
- An injury-in-fact; and
- That the injury falls within SEQRA’s “environmental” zone of interests, generally implying an environmental (not purely economic) injury.
The “affected property owner” rule from Har. In Har, the Court held that “no such specific allegation [of environmental harm] is necessary” when the petitioner’s property is the “very subject” of the governmental action. The landowner’s interest in the lawful regulation of its own property is enough.
Confirmation in Gernatt. In Gernatt, the Court applied Har in the context of a zoning ordinance banning mining, holding that the landowner whose mining use was prohibited was “directly impacted” and thus had standing under SEQRA, again without needing to allege an environmental injury.
Application to SMI. The 2016 Law:
- Was aimed squarely at solid waste disposal facilities in the Town; and
- As a practical matter, directly and substantially restricted SMI’s use of its property by mandating closure of the landfill by December 31, 2025.
Therefore:
- SMI’s property—the landfill—is “the very subject” of the regulatory action.
- Like the commercial use in Har and the mining use in Gernatt, SMI’s use of its property is directly curtailed.
Result. Under Har and Gernatt, SMI:
- Need not show that it has suffered or will suffer a particular environmental harm; and
- Has a “legally cognizable interest in being assured that the Town satisfied SEQRA” before acting to prohibit its facility.

Thus, the Appellate Division majority committed a doctrinal error by importing the general SEQRA rule (environmental injury) into a context where the Court of Appeals has already created an exception: where a property owner’s land use is directly regulated.

2. Rejection of the Intervenors’ Standing Argument

The intervenors argued that because SMI asserted primarily economic harms (loss of landfill operation, profits, etc.), and did not claim a distinct environmental injury, it lacked SEQRA standing. That might be persuasive under the general Society of Plastics framework, but the Court emphasizes that Har and Gernatt are more specific and thus controlling:

Directly regulated owners are not required to allege environmental harm.
They have a particularized stake in the regulatory action sufficient to ensure that SEQRA’s procedural safeguards are enforced.

By framing SMI as “an affected property owner” whose land is the regulated subject of the law, the Court definitively answers the standing question in SMI’s favor.

3. Procedural Posture and Limit on Reviewing the Statute of Limitations

The intervenors also tried to reintroduce a statute of limitations defense, arguing that SMI’s challenge was filed more than four months after the 2016 Law became effective and should therefore be dismissed as untimely.

However:

The Appellate Division had already addressed and rejected this limitations argument in its 2021 decision (197 AD3d 932).
That 2021 order was nonfinal, and earlier attempts to obtain Court of Appeals review were dismissed for nonfinality (38 NY3d 997).
SMI’s current appeal as of right is taken pursuant to CPLR 5601 (d), based on the parties’ stipulation and targeted at the 2024 standing decision.

Under Gilroy and CPLR 5601 (d), the Court of Appeals’ power in such an appeal is:

“narrowly circumscribed and reaches only the prior nonfinal determination of the Appellate Division upon which the appeal is predicated.”

Here, that predicate order is the 2024 decision holding SMI lacked standing. The statute of limitations ruling from 2021 is:

A different Appellate Division order; and
Not within the scope of the Court’s review in this particular appeal as of right.

Consequently, the Court holds that the limitations argument “should not be reviewed at this juncture,” emphasizing that:

The case is being remitted to the Appellate Division for a determination on the SEQRA merits.
The Court of Appeals is not disturbing the prior limitations ruling, nor is it entertaining a collateral attack on it in this constrained procedural posture.

The opinion does not explicitly invoke “law of the case,” but functionally, the 2021 decision on timeliness remains operative and unreviewed at the Court of Appeals level.

C. Impact and Significance

1. Practical Impact on SEQRA Standing Doctrine

This decision consolidates and clarifies New York’s SEQRA standing doctrine in a way that is highly relevant to land-use and environmental litigation:

Reaffirmation of the affected property owner rule. The Court removes any doubt that:
- Directly regulated property owners need not allege environmental injury.
- It is enough that a local law or governmental action specifically targets or substantively restricts their property use.
Limits on misreading Society of Plastics. Trial and intermediate appellate courts sometimes treat Society of Plastics and Mobil Oil as demanding environmental injury in every SEQRA case. Seneca Meadows makes clear that this is not so, where the plaintiff is the directly regulated landowner.
Multi-party SEQRA litigation. In many SEQRA challenges, you see both:
- Property owners challenging environmental regulations or denials; and
- Civic or environmental groups challenging approvals or insufficient mitigation for development projects.
This decision confirms that the two are not treated identically for standing:
- Citizen groups and neighbors typically still must show environmental injury within the zone of interests.
- Directly regulated owners get standing by virtue of ownership plus direct impact.

In this sense, the decision maintains SEQRA’s private enforcement model while ensuring that those most directly impacted by land-use regulations can always insist that the government follow SEQRA’s procedural mandates.

2. SEQRA as a Procedural Shield for Regulated Parties

A striking feature of the case is that SEQRA—designed to protect the environment—is being used by a landfill operator to attack an ostensibly environmentally protective measure (a law that would close the landfill).

This is consistent with a long line of New York cases in which:

SEQRA is a procedural statute: it requires proper study, consideration, and disclosure of environmental impacts.
If government fails to follow SEQRA, even for an environmentally beneficial action (like restricting a polluting facility), the action can be invalidated until SEQRA is complied with.

By strengthening standing for directly regulated parties, the Court ensures that municipalities cannot:

Short-circuit SEQRA review in the name of environmental protection; or
Rely on political pressures alone without the required environmental analysis.

For future cases, governments making aggressive regulatory moves against large facilities—landfills, mining operations, waste-to-energy plants, wind farms, etc.—should expect:

Robust SEQRA challenges from the regulated entities;
The inability to defeat those challenges by arguing lack of environmental injury;
A need to prepare full and defensible records demonstrating a “hard look” at all relevant impacts, including potential adverse consequences of closure or restriction (e.g., increased trucking of waste to other sites, potential air emissions elsewhere, noise and traffic impacts, etc.).

3. Appellate Practice Under CPLR 5601(d)

Procedurally, the decision provides an important reminder about appellate timing and strategy:

When a nonfinal Appellate Division order decides a significant issue (like statute of limitations), parties must:
- Either seek leave to appeal; or
- Be prepared that they may be unable to re-open that issue on a later appeal as of right under CPLR 5601 (d), which is limited to the specific nonfinal order designated.
If a later Appellate Division order addresses a different issue (e.g., standing), a final judgment entered pursuant to a stipulation can bring only that order up for review as of right, not earlier orders.

For litigants, this underscores:

The importance of carefully planning appellate routes and not assuming that every interlocutory ruling can be revisited later; and
The risk of allowing a critical adverse ruling (like timeliness) to stand without securing leave to appeal when it is first issued.

4. Environmental and Local Governance Implications

Substantively, this case sits at the intersection of:

Local control over land use (home rule, zoning, and local environmental management); and
State-level procedural oversight through SEQRA, which ensures that environmental and related factors are considered “together” with social and economic considerations.

The decision reinforces SEQRA’s role as a check on local legislative and policy decisions that affect major facilities:

Even if there is political support for shutting down a large landfill, the Board must still comply with SEQRA.
This includes taking a “hard look” not just at the benefits of closure (reduced odor and local pollution) but also at any adverse environmental impacts of closure (e.g., increased transportation of waste, impacts on other communities, greenhouse gas emissions from longer hauling distances).

On remand, the Appellate Division will now have to evaluate whether the Board’s negative declaration and SEQRA process met those standards—a question that, because of the standing dispute, it had not previously reached.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

A. What Is SEQRA and What Does “Hard Look” Mean?

SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) is a New York statute that requires state and local agencies to:

Identify potential environmental impacts of their actions (such as passing laws, approving projects, issuing permits); and
Consider those environmental impacts alongside social and economic factors before making decisions.

SEQRA does not tell a government what decision to make; rather, it governs how decisions are made. The key is that the agency must:

Conduct a thorough review;
Consider all relevant environmental concerns; and
Explain, in a reasoned way, why it has chosen a particular course of action.

This is often summarized as the “hard look” requirement:

Before acting, the agency must take a hard look at the potential environmental consequences and provide a reasoned elaboration of the basis for its determination.

If the agency finds that there is no potential for significant adverse environmental impacts, it can issue a “negative declaration” and avoid preparing a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). But that negative declaration must itself be the product of a proper, documented analysis.

B. What Is “Standing” and Why Does Environmental Injury Matter?

Standing is a legal concept defining who is allowed to bring a lawsuit. In SEQRA cases, it serves to:

Ensure that courts only hear cases from people who are genuinely affected by the government action, and
Prevent courts from being used to resolve purely political disagreements or abstract disputes.

Under the general SEQRA standing rule:

The plaintiff must show an injury-in-fact—some real, direct harm or threatened harm, not just a general objection.
The injury must be within SEQRA’s zone of interests, meaning it should be environmental (air, water, land, noise, etc.), not purely economic or generalized.

However, Har, Gernatt, and now Seneca Meadows confirm that:

If you are the owner of the property directly regulated or restricted by the government action,
You do not have to allege a specific environmental injury to have SEQRA standing.

Your direct interest as a landowner in how your land is regulated is enough to get into court to enforce SEQRA’s procedural requirements.

C. What Is an Appeal Under CPLR 5601(d)?

CPLR 5601 (d) allows a party to appeal to the Court of Appeals “as of right” (without asking permission) in a specific situation:

When the parties enter a final judgment or order based on a stipulation (often used to make the case final for appeal); and
The appellant wants to bring up for review a particular prior nonfinal Appellate Division order.

But the key limitation, as explained in Gilroy and reiterated here, is:

The Court of Appeals can review only that specific nonfinal Appellate Division order identified as the basis for the 5601 (d) appeal, not all earlier interlocutory rulings.

In this case:

The parties’ stipulation and final judgment were designed to bring up the 2024 Appellate Division order (on SMI’s standing) for review as of right.
The 2021 order (holding the SEQRA claim timely) was a different nonfinal order and thus not within the Court’s jurisdiction in this appeal.

V. Conclusion

Matter of Seneca Meadows, Inc. v. Town of Seneca Falls firmly situates directly regulated property owners at the center of SEQRA enforcement. By reaffirming that such owners have standing without alleging a specific environmental injury, the Court renews the vitality of Har and Gernatt and clarifies a point that had been muddied in some lower court decisions.

At the same time, the Court underscores the limited nature of its review in an appeal as of right under CPLR 5601 (d), refusing to revisit a statute of limitations issue already resolved in a separate nonfinal order. This maintains both doctrinal coherence and procedural discipline.

Looking forward, the decision:

Ensures that municipalities cannot evade SEQRA scrutiny when enacting laws that directly restrict private land uses—even in the name of environmental protection.
Signals to regulated entities that they can rely on SEQRA as a procedural safeguard, with assured standing, when their property is the direct subject of governmental action.
Preserves, for neighboring residents and environmental groups, the more traditional requirement of showing environmental injury under Society of Plastics and Mobil Oil.

The ultimate merits question—whether the Town of Seneca Falls complied with SEQRA’s “hard look” requirement when it adopted the 2016 Law—remains to be answered by the Appellate Division on remand. But the Court of Appeals has now settled the threshold question of who may demand that answer: when the government targets your property, you are entitled to insist that SEQRA be followed.

Directly Regulated Landowners and SEQRA Standing: Commentary on Matter of Seneca Meadows, Inc. v. Town of Seneca Falls