Costco, at what cost?

State Supreme Court Justice Peter Lynch was unsparing when he ruled last week that the environmental review of apartments and a Costco store proposed for Guilderland was far from thorough.

Judge Lynch, in a highly detailed 77-page ruling on a lawsuit brought by town residents, knocked the developer, Pyramid Management Group, for keeping its plans for the massive new development a secret, and criticized the Guilderland Town Planning Board for cutting corners as it undertook the state Environmental Quality Review Act process.

The judge’s decision is peppered with phrases such as “remarkably misleading” and “patently false.” It repeatedly chides the developer for apparent falsehoods and town officials for letting them go unchallenged.

The SEQRA review, Judge Lynch wrote, “is replete with conclusory self-serving and equally troubling representations made by the project sponsor, without the support of empirical data, which, unfortunately, the Planning Board relied on. That is not the stuff that the SEQRA hard look test is made of.”

Kudos to Judge Lynch for taking a close look at the project. It is rare that such Article 78 lawsuits succeed, even when local officials, as is so often the case, improperly lower the bar for development projects that they favor. And kudos to residents who brought the legal action when they saw that Guilderland officials were failing in their diligence.

The sloppiness Judge Lynch details would be troubling in any town or for any site. But it is particularly troubling here, since the 160,000-square-foot Costco and 222 apartments are proposed for land near the Pine Bush Preserve and the Rapp Road Historic District, a community built by Black people who came north early in the 20th century in what’s known as the Great Migration.

This is a site that requires special care and particular attention to detail. Instead, Guilderland officials eschewed proper mitigations and disregarded how apartment buildings, traffic and noise might change the character of the historic district or negatively affect the ecosystem of the Pine Bush — one of the last inland pine barrens in the world, and home to a number of endangered and threatened species including the Karner blue butterfly.

That should concern all Guilder-land residents. After all, if town officials will cut corners at such an important and historic site, they will cut corners anywhere and everywhere. No neighborhood can feel protected.

It is easy to understand why Guilderland is eager to have the region’s first Costco built within its borders: Consider the tax and economic benefits the project could provide, especially with government tax revenues strained by the COVID-19 pandemic. But that is no excuse for kowtowing to a developer or skimping on a process designed to protect residents and their environment.

If a Costco is to be built in Guilder-land, town officials need to demand that the project is done right. So far, they haven’t.