Since 1975, when New York State enacted the requirement that government agencies study the potential significant environmental impacts of land use projects, environmental studies have evolved from 20-page documents prepared by City employees into several thousand-page documents written by experts at a cost of millions. Attorney David Paget, who for more than 20 years has advised clients like the Empire State Development Corporation and Related Companies on environmental review compliance, talked to CityLand about his experience with the mounting complexities of the review process through his work on projects like Hudson Yards, Hunts Point Terminal Market, Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards and Yankee Stadium.

the Lillian Wald housing project located on East 4th Street and Avenue D. When he started at City College, he became the first member of his family to gain a higher education. After City College and New York University Law School, Paget went to Kaye Scholer and then the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District. In 1973, he joined David Sive, a pioneering environmental lawyer, to relieve Sive of his commercial litigation caseload. Gradually, he started working on environmental analyses of development projects. The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, Paget’s first major project, came at a time when the City was emerging from an economic crisis and, for Paget, it led to over 20 years of work on the city’s major development projects. He fell into the career “utterly by accident,” noting ironically that growing up in City public housing gave him no concept of the development occurring around him. (read more…)