Stadiums and State Environmental Policy Acts
Kellen Zale, "Stadiums and State Environmental Policy Acts," in Sports Stadiums and Environmental Justice, Tim Kellison, ed. (1st ed. Routledge 2022).
17 Pages Posted: 23 Jan 2024
Date Written: January 22, 2024
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of how state environmental policy acts (SEPAs) apply to stadium projects. SEPAs have been enacted in 16 states (as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico) to identify and address environmental impacts of human activities. As such, SEPAs offer an important source of existing legal authority for responding to negative environmental impacts associated with stadiums that may disproportionately affect environmental justice communities. However, SEPAs also have shortcomings in this context. SEPAs do not always map neatly onto the environmental justice model: their legal framework is designed to identify (and, in some states, require mitigation of) adverse environmental impacts in overall terms, not necessarily to address the distributional consequences of how environmental harms are experienced by different communities. Furthermore, over the past two decades, there has been a repeated pattern in some states—most notably California—of stadium projects legally avoiding, either in whole or in part, environmental review under SEPAs. Nonetheless, SEPAs provide an important legal (and political) lever for advancing environmental justice goals related to stadium projects in states with these laws.
Keywords: environmental justice, environmental law, land use, sustainability, property law, real estate, state and local government, NEPA, SEPAs, redevelopment, urban planning, zoning, sports stadiums
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