Regional / National Insights — Page 2

The New NY Environmental Justice Siting Law: How it Redefines ‘Significant Impact’ under SEQRA

If you’re a developer in New York, the calendar just flipped to June 12, 2026, and the ground beneath your project has shifted. The State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) isn't what it was yesterday. With the official implementation of the 2024 Environmental Justice (EJ) Siting Law, the definition of a "significant impact" has been […]

Phase II Site Investigation: Precision vs. ‘Fishing Expeditions’

You just received your Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA). The report identifies three Recognized Environmental Conditions (RECs): a former underground storage tank (UST), a historical floor drain in the warehouse, and some suspicious "historic fill" along the property line. Now comes the fork in the road. You can hire a big-box national firm that […]

Disadvantaged Community Mapping: How the Updated NY EAFs Change Your Due Diligence

If you are a developer in New York, your "to-do" list just got a lot more complicated. For years, environmental justice was often treated as a peripheral concern: a checkbox on a long list of regulatory requirements. That era is officially over. With the implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) and […]

New York’s 2040 Climate Target: Strategic Planning for the Next Wave of GHG Regulations

For developers and property owners in the New York and New Jersey metro, regulatory goalposts aren’t just lines in a report: they are the constraints that define project feasibility and asset value. Recent legislative updates have fundamentally reshaped New York’s climate roadmap. The original 2030 target of a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions […]

Practical Steps for Facility Operators and Developers Now that the DMM-7A strategy is live, what should you actually do? Here is the Envicon roadmap for staying ahead of the PFAS curve: Review Your Sources: If you take in biosolids from municipal treatment plants, ask for their DMM-7 data now. Don't wait until your finished compost […]

NY’s New EJ Siting Law: How Disadvantaged Communities are Now a SEQRA Trigger

If you’re a developer in New York, the "grace period" for your environmental review just ended. As of June 12, 2026, the rules for the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) have fundamentally shifted. The implementation of the 2024 Environmental Justice Siting Law (EJSL) means that your project’s impact is no longer measured solely against […]

New York Housing Exemption from Environmental Review: Why Phase I ESAs Are Still Non-Negotiable

The landscape of New York real estate development just underwent its most significant regulatory shift in a generation. Under the Fiscal Year 2026-2027 budget amendments, the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) has been overhauled to fast-track housing. For developers, this sounds like the holy grail: a categorical exemption from the grueling environmental impact statement […]

Managing Disadvantaged Community Impacts: A Guide to the 2024 EJ Siting Law in NY

The regulatory landscape for New York developers just shifted. If you’re operating in the five boroughs or across the state, the "check-the-box" approach to Environmental Justice (EJ) is officially dead. With the full implementation of the 2024 EJ Siting Law (S8830/A2103), environmental justice is no longer a peripheral consideration or a paragraph in a report, […]

NY’s New Environmental Justice Siting Law: How SEQRA Significance is Changing in 2026

For decades, the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) was largely a "check-the-box" procedural hurdle for many developers in New York. You filled out your Environmental Assessment Form (EAF), addressed the obvious impacts like traffic and noise, and: if your consultant knew what they were doing: you walked away with a Negative Declaration. That era […]

The Data Advantage: Why Our Real-Time Dashboards Beat Your Consultant’s Monthly PDF

Look, we’ve all been there. It’s the middle of the month, your lender is breathing down your neck for a status update on the remediation, and you’re staring at a PDF report that was sent three weeks ago. That report is a static snapshot of a site that doesn’t exist anymore. The soil has been […]

Vapor Intrusion: The Silent Project Killer and How to Proactively Manage the Risk

It’s 7:00 AM on a Tuesday. You’re on-site, the concrete trucks are scheduled for next week, and your lender just called. They’ve been reviewing the latest round of indoor air data, and suddenly, your "clean" site isn’t so clean. They’re seeing hits of Trichloroethylene (TCE) or Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) that weren't there in the initial Phase […]

Turning Dirt into Dollars: The Industrial Owner’s Guide to 2026 Repositioning

If you own an aging industrial property in the New York-New Jersey metro, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news? That 40-year-old facility with the leaky roof and questionable soil history isn't magically going to fix itself. The good news? You're sitting on what might be the most valuable real estate asset […]