APA approves Tupper Lake resort

Tupper Lake resident James Lanthier demonstrates outside the APA in favor of the Adirondack Club and Resort. Photo by Phil Brown.

The Adirondack Park Agency voted 10-1 today to approve the controversial Adirondack Club and Resort, the largest development ever to come before the agency.

Several commissioners said they had concerns about the project—including what they described as the developers’ optimistic sales projections—but they concluded that it fell within the APA’s regulations.

The commissioners agreed with the agency’s staff that the resort would not cause an “undue adverse environmental impact” and expressed hope that it would boost the fortunes of Tupper Lake.

Tupper Lakes hopes the resort will revive its downtown. Photo by Susan Bibeau.

“This brings the opportunity of economic development to Tupper Lake, something that’s badly needed,” said Commissioner William Thomas.

Tupper Lake residents in the audience applauded when the decision was announced, and several thanked the board afterward.

Preserve Associates plans to build a 719-unit resort on 6,200 acres of forestland near the Big Tupper Ski Area. The development will include so-called Great Camps, single-family homes, town houses, a sixty-room hotel, a restaurant, shops, a health spa, and a marina. Preserve Associates also intends to expand and renovate the ski area.

Michael Foxman, one of the principal developers, began his quest for an APA permit eight years ago. At the time, he said, he was told the process would take eight months. Had he known it would take as long as it did, he added, he probably would not have pursued the project.

Foxman still needs to obtain permits from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of Health and work out a financing deal with the Franklin County Industrial Development Agency.

After the APA vote, Foxman said he hopes to break ground in 2013. Preserve Associates plans to begin the development by selling Great Camp lots east of Lake Simond and work their way west toward the ski area. Asked if he has any buyers lined up, Foxman replied, “We have people we have been talking to for five years. Some are still interested, some might not be.”

Richard Booth was the only commissioner to vote against the permit. He called the developers’ sales projections—and thus the benefits to the community—unrealistic. He also faulted Preserve Associates for failing to undertake a comprehensive survey of wildlife on the property. Finally, he contended that the development is not compatible with the agency’s guidelines for Resource Management lands.

Most of the development will occur on lands classified as Resource Management, the strictest of the APA’s zoning categories. The agency’s Land Use and Development Plan defines Resource Management as open-space lands whose “primary uses” include forestry, agriculture, and hunting. However, the plan allows the construction of single-family homes “on substantial acreages or in small clusters.” The APA has never defined “substantial acreages” or “small clusters,” but Booth asserted that the design of the Adirondack Club and Resort, spread over thousands of acres, disturbs Resource Management lands “in a way that I think is not necessary and not acceptable.”

Environmental organizations such as the Adirondack Council and Adirondack Wild pressed Preserve Associates to come up with an alternative design to cluster the development more. Many of the complaints were aimed at the Great Camps, most of which will be built on lots ranging from twenty to a hundred acres. Because the thirty-nine Great Camps will be scattered throughout the tract, critics argue that they will fragment the forest and disturb wildlife habitat.

Preserve Associates stuck to its design, with several modifications, but it did agree to prohibit any further subdivision of the Great Camp lots. In the end, the changes were enough to win the support of the Adirondack Council.

“We didn’t get everything we wanted, but we got enough,” said Brian Houseal, the council’s executive director.

Houseal said the council wanted Preserve Associates to refrain from developing the lands east of Lake Simond, which border the 14,600-acre Follensby Park. The Follensby tract is owned by the Nature Conservancy, which plans to sell it to the state sometime in the next several years.

Adirondack Wild, however, remained fiercely opposed to the project. David Gibson, one of the group’s founders, called the APA vote “the most significantly bad decision they’ve ever made in the [twenty-plus] years I’ve observed this agency.”

Gibson said much of the development should have been moved from Resource Management to lands classified Moderate Intensity Use, a less-stringent zoning category. “There were so many other [design] alternatives with 6,200 acres to get it right,” he said.

Gibson said he did not know if Adirondack Wild would challenge the decision in court.

Another environmental group, Protect the Adirondacks, also opposed the project as designed.

APA writes draft permit for Tupper resort

The Adirondack Club and Resort would be built on forested lands near the Big Tupper Ski Area. Photo by Carl Heilman II.

After six years of public debate, the Adirondack Park Agency’s staff has written a draft permit for the Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake, finding that the resort would comply with the law if it meets all the conditions of the permit.

The APA board, which is scheduled to vote next Friday, could approve the draft permit, approve it with modifications, or reject it. Among other things, the board must decide whether the project will cause an “undue adverse environmental impact.”

Two environmental activists disagree on whether the project as described in the permit passes the test.

Brian Houseal, executive director of the Adirondack Council, said he is happy with the changes required by the draft permit. “The developer has designed the project within the existing regulations,” he said.

Houseal said he is especially pleased that no further subdivision will be allowed on the land occupied by the so-called Great Camps. As a result, he said, the fragmentation of wildlife habitat will be limited.

“The changes imposed by the APA will probably avoid undue adverse environmental impact,” Houseal said. “Is that a win for the environmental community? Yes.”

But David Gibson of Adirondack Wild contends that the board should reject the permit. Most of the Great Camps will be built on lands classified as Resource Management, where typical uses are forestry, agriculture, and recreation. Residential development is allowed only “on substantial acreages or in small clusters.” Gibson said many of the Great Camps will be built on fifteen- or twenty-acre lots. “It doesn’t meet the criterion for Resource Management,” Gibson said. “Most of the Adirondack Club and Resort could not be defined as being on substantial acreage or in small clusters.”

Gibson also said the developers failed to conduct a thorough study of wildlife on the property. Houseal, however, pointed out that the draft permit now requires the developers to undertake an amphibian study.

Adirondack Wild wants adjudicatory hearings reopened to address wildlife impacts and other issues, but Houseal disagrees.

“It’s time to have a decision here,” Houseal said. “I appreciate Adirondack Wild’s motion to put it back in the hearing, but we need to have a decision.”

Preserve Associates wants to build a 719-unit resort—a mixture of single- and multi-family homes—on some 6,200 acres near the Big Tupper Ski Area. It would be the largest development ever approved by the APA.

Despite writing a draft permit, the APA staff did not make a recommendation to approve or reject the project. APA spokesman Keith McKeever said this was due partly to the complexity of the project. “It’s up to the board to make a decision,” he said.

If the developers win the APA’s go-ahead, they will still need to obtain water-quality permits from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and financing approvals from the Franklin County Industrial Development Agency. Houseal argues that one lesson of the drawn-out process is that permits for future projects should be considered together, not separately.

Click here to download the draft permit and conditions.

The APA’s slippery criteria

Preserve Associates wants to build a 706-unit development near the Big Tupper Ski Area. Photo by Carl Heilman II.

Resource Management is the most restrictive zoning category for private land in the Adirondack Park. In the debate over the Adirondack Club and Resort, one of the big questions is whether the proposed resort is suitable for RM lands.

Essentially, RM lands are timberlands. The Adirondack Park Agency Act says the primary (or best) uses of such lands include forestry, agriculture, and recreation. Housing developments are considered “secondary uses.”

The law says that residential development on RM lands is permissible “on substantial acreages or in small clusters on carefully selected and well designed sites.”

The developers contend that their design meets the standard, whereas their opponents say it doesn’t.

The APA board, which began reviewing the project Thursday, will have to decide who is right. That won’t be a simple task: APA regulations fail to define either “substantial acreages” or “small clusters.”

The developers, Preserve Associates, want to build 706 housing units on 6,234 acres near the Big Tupper Ski Area in the town of Tupper Lake. The development would include 206 single-family homes, 453 townhouse units (in 125 buildings), thirty-nine Great Camps, and eight artist cabins.

Much of the debate revolves around the Great Camps. Critics argue that these rustic mansions would be scattered around in such a way as to fragment the forest and diminish wildlife habitat.

Most of the Great Camps would be built on lots ranging from twenty to thirty acres. Eight of them would be built on larger lots, ranging from 111 to 1,211 acres.

Since most of the Great Camps would be on RM lands, the APA board will be applying the “substantial acreage” and “small clusters” tests.

APA attorney Sarah Reynolds told the board Thursday that the agency’s staff does not regard the smaller lots as “substantial acreages.” The staff feels that the larger lots do meet the criterion. But Dan Plumley of Adirondack Wild contends that “substantial acreages” should be applied only to tracts of at least a few thousand acres.

If any of the Great Camps are not on substantial acreages, the board will need to decide whether they meet the “small clusters” criterion.

Preserve Associates argues that the resort does employ cluster development in that most of the land will remain in open space. Green groups disagree. The Adirondack Council has proposed three alternative designs that would preserve more open space. In the council’s preferred design, all of the development would take place on 750 acres west of Read Road, leaving 80 percent of the land untouched. Likewise, Protect the Adirondacks proposes that most of the Great Camps be built on lots ranging from two to five acres—again leaving most of the land undeveloped.

And what if the Great Camps meet neither criterion?

That, too, is up for debate. Protect the Adirondacks argues that the criteria are mandatory, but the developers say they’re not. The APA staff agrees with the developers, but the board is not bound by the staff’s interpretation.

In short, the board is tasked with making a decision on a huge (and controversial) development without knowing what the criteria mean or even if the criteria must be applied.

By the way, no one knows what “forest fragmentation” means either.

Ulrich picked to lead APA board

Governor Andrew Cuomo has chosen Lani Ulrich to take the helm of the Adirondack Park Agency board and nominated Wanakena resident Sherman Craig to a vacant seat on the body.

Lani Ulrich

Ulrich, an APA commissioner since 2004, had emerged as a consensus candidate to replace Curt Stiles, who resigned in August after four years as the board’s chairman.

“She gets along with both conservation organizations and local government,” said John Sheehan, a spokesman for the Adirondack Council. “We think she’ll steer a wise course.”

Fred Monroe, executive director of the Local Government Review Board, an APA watchdog, also has spoken favorably of Ulrich. “I think she takes a balanced approach, and she’s always willing to listen to local government positions,” he told North Country Public Radio in September.

Ulrich, an Old Forge resident, ran afoul of APA shoreline-setback regulations this year. APA spokesman Keith McKeever said her dock on the Middle Branch of the Moose River and the steps leading to it exceeded 100 square feet, the maximum allowed under the law. He said Ulrich fixed the problem by removing some of the steps.

Sherman Craig is a retired teacher and avid hiker who has lived on the Oswegatchie River in Wanakena since 2001. He is chairman of Five Ponds Partners, an organization that created the Cranberry Lake 50—a fifty-mile trail that circles Cranberry Lake.

Click here to read the governor’s news release on the appointments.

Driving to Marcy Dam?

Jim McCulley walks along the Old Mountain Road in the Sentinel Range Wilderness. Photo by Susan Bibeau

Imagine how the High Peaks Wilderness would change if people were allowed to drive to Marcy Dam or Indian Pass. The Adirondack Park Agency raises this possibility in a legal brief filed last week in the long and convoluted dispute over the Old Mountain Road in the Sentinel Range Wilderness.

The Old Mountain Road is now used as a trail for hiking and cross-country skiing, but in May 2009 the state’s environmental conservation commissioner ruled that the route was never legally closed and thus, theoretically, could be reopened to motor vehicles.

If allowed to stand, the decision could be cited as a precedent for reopening other old roads in the Forest Preserve, according to the APA.

Jim McCulley, the president of the Lake Placid Snowmobile Club, touched off the battle in 2005 when he drove his pickup truck onto Old Mountain Road. Motorized vehicles are not allowed in Wilderness Areas, but McCulley contended that the road had never been legally closed. He was ticketed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis agreed with McCulley and dismissed the ticket. But DEC’s staff, in a motion filed by DEC attorney Randall Young, contended that Grannis misinterpreted the law and asked for a clarification of the decision. Young is not seeking to reinstate McCulley’s ticket, but he has argued that Grannis’s ruling raises questions about the status of other roads in the Forest Preserve.

The APA sides with Young on this point. In its brief, the APA mentions the old truck trail to Marcy Dam and the trail through Indian Pass as two old roads at risk of being reopened to motor vehicles—both of which are in the High Peaks Wilderness.

“These are just two among many recreational trails that occupy the track of 19^th century roads and are placed in question by the argument in the Commissioner’s [ruling],” the APA says.

The APA argues that Grannis’s ruling violates the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, which sets forth the rules for the management of Wilderness Areas. In essence, the APA contends, Grannis modified the master plan by altering the status of the road. The APA says only its board can modify the master plan.

The Adirondack Council also filed a brief in the case. The council also says the Grannis decision could lead to the reopening of roads in other parts of the Forest Preserve, endangering flora and fauna and damaging trails.

Click here to read a story in the Adirondack Explorer about the implications of the Grannis ruling.

The decision on whether to clarify the ruling lies with Administrative Law Judge Louis Alexander.

McCulley’s lawyer, Matt Norfolk of Lake Placid, said in his brief opposing the motion for clarification that his client will not recognize any order that alters the Grannis decision. “The motions for clarification and reconsideration … have made this particular administrative proceeding to be a spectacle of lawlessness and abuse of process,” Norfolk asserts.

Norfolk also contends that the APA filed its brief after the 5 p.m. deadline on March 18. In a letter to Alexander, he asks that the agency’s brief be rejected as untimely.

Click the links below the read the briefs filed by the APA, the Adirondack Council, and Norfolk.

APA brief PDF

Adk Council brief PDF

Norfolk brief PDF

ADK objects to Moose River Plains plan

The Adirondack Mountain Club is objecting to the state’s recommendation to allow mountain biking on an old road in a portion of the Moose River Plains that has been proposed to be designated Wilderness.

ADK Executive Director Neil Woodworth said the mountain-bike corridor would set a bad precedent and could open the door for other uses, such as snowmobiling, normally prohibited in Wilderness Areas.

Otter Brook Truck Trail. Photo by Phil Brown.

“The harder it is to get into the Wilderness, the more protected it is,” Woodworth said.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation proposes to establish the biking corridor in the latest version of its draft management plan for the Moose River Plains Wild Forest.

In an earlier draft of the plan, DEC recommended reclassifying fifteen thousand acres of the Moose River Plains as Wilderness and adding it to the adjacent West Canada Lake Wilderness. The updated draft would allow the Otter Brook Truck Trail—which forms the boundary between the existing and proposed Wilderness tracts—to remain classified as Wild Forest. Mountain biking is allowed Wild Forest Areas.

 In a letter to the Adirondack Park Agency, the club contends that this “spot zoning” is tantamount to allowing a prohibited use in a Wilderness Area. “To arbitrarily carve out a ‘Wild Forest’ corridor for mountain bike use in the middle of the proposed West Canada Lake Wilderness Area completely defeats the purpose of the Wilderness designation,” the letter says.

The APA is scheduled to discuss and perhaps vote on the plan at its meeting this week.

Mitch Lee, the assistant director of tourism for Inlet, argues that the hard surface of the truck trail makes it ideal for mountain biking. Using it and existing dirt roads, bikers can pedal in a fourteen-mile loop. Lee added that he often sends mountain bikers to the Moose River Plains.

“Taking away access to the Forest Preserve, especially if the Forest Preserve is not being damaged, is not a good thing for recreation,” he said.

Bill Ingersoll, the publisher of the Discover the Adirondacks series of guidebooks, also objects to the Wild Forest corridor. He said he has walked the Otter Brook Truck Trail several times and seen no evidence of use by bikers.

Lee, however, counters that the town can’t get a DEC permit to maintain the trail for biking until the management plan is approved. “It hasn’t got a lot of mountain-bike use because it hasn’t been available to us,” he said.

The Adirondack Council also is not happy with splitting the Wilderness tract with a biking corridor, but it doesn’t plan to fight it. “We are not taking a strong position against it,” said Scott Lorey, the council’s legislative director.

Lorey said the council is more concerned with a proposal to leave open the Indian Lake Road as far as the Squaw Lake trailhead. In the earlier draft, DEC proposed to close the entire Indian Lake Road, which also forms a boundary between the West Canada Lake Wilderness and the Moose River Plains.

Lorey contends that leaving part of the road open will invite motorized trespass into the Wilderness Area. Lee, however, said it will allow fishermen easy access to Squaw Lake, which he described as a stellar brook-trout water.

APA votes to preserve towers

The Hurricane Mountain fire tower. Photo by Phil Brown.

After years of debate and delay, the Adirondack Park Agency voted today to authorize the rehabilitation of dormant fire towers on St. Regis and Hurricane mountains.

The APA board voted 9-0 to reclassify a half-acre under each tower as a Historic Area—an action that critics denounced as “spot zoning,” warning that it sets a bad precedent.

The Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan had called for removing the towers, but in the face of a public outcry, the APA agreed to amend the master plan to allow the towers to stay.

The APA board expects that citizens groups will raise the money to fix up the steel structures. Board members also said the state Department of Environmental Conservation can remove the towers if they become a safety hazard or financial liability.

David Petrelli of the Friends of St. Regis was elated with the decision. “We have only a handful of these towers left,” he said, “and when one is taken down, it’s lost forever.”

“They’re landmarks; they’re part of our history,” said Melvin “Stub” Longware of the Friends of the Hurricane Fire Tower.

Assuming the governor signs off on the agency’s decision, DEC will draft management plans for the two Historic Areas. After that, the two friends groups will be able to begin work on fixing up the towers so they can be reopened to the public. DEC removed the lower steps from both towers years ago to make them inaccessible.

As recently as September, it seemed doubtful that the agency would allow the towers to be reopened to the public. At that month’s meeting, the APA staff recommended that the land under the towers be classified as Primitive. Under this scenario, APA staff said DEC would be authorized to do minimal maintenance to keep the towers intact but prohibited from restoring them for public use. When people on both sides objected to this solution, the staff changed its position.

Environmental organizations had argued that the APA should follow the State Land Master Plan and remove the towers. Acknowledging the towers’ cultural importance, they suggested that the structures be rebuilt in nearby hamlets and promoted as tourist attractions.

One tower is in the 13,500-acre Hurricane Mountain Primitive Area. It was only the tower’s presence that prevented the APA from originally classifying the region as Wilderness—which is defined in the State Land Master Plan as an area where “the imprint of man’s work is substantially unnoticeable.”

Despite acquiescing in the tower’s restoration, the APA board designated the rest of the tract as Wilderness. David Gibson of Adirondack Wild contends these twin decisions make a mockery of the Wilderness guidelines in the State Land Master Plan. “It’s clearly not compatible to have a five-story steel structure in the middle of a Wilderness Area,” he said.

The other tower is in the 18,200-acre St. Regis Canoe Area. Essentially, the Canoe Area is managed by the same guidelines as Wilderness. Thus, the tower had been considered a “non-conforming use” in the State Land Master Plan.

Because the towers were in violation of the master plan, the APA had to amend the document somehow to permit them to stay in place.

Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, said he would have preferred that the agency classify the tower footprints as Primitive rather than Historic. He fears that people might cite this precedent as a rationale for permitting other structures to remain in Wilderness Areas and perhaps for reopening old roads in the Forest Preserve.

“Given the direction that some historic preservationists want to go, you could really change the wilderness character of the Park,” Woodworth said.

Woodworth said the towers could have been fixed up even if the summits had been classified as Primitive. “If they’re going to stay, they ought to be maintained, and the public ought to be able to use them,” he said.

His first choice, however, was to remove the towers. He noted that hikers can obtain great views from the summits without climbing the towers.

Brian Houseal, executive director of the Adirondack Council, also favored the removal of the towers, but he regards the issue as minor. “We’re not going to challenge this decision,” he said. “We have bigger fights.”

Council loses snowmobile decision

A state judge has dismissed the Adirondack Council’s complaint that guidelines for snowmobile trails, adopted last year, violate the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan and the forever-wild clause of the state constitution.

Photo from Wikipedia.

The guidelines authorize the state Department of Environmental Conservation to construct extra-wide “community connector” trails between hamlets and allow tractor groomers to maintain them.

The Adirondack Park Agency approved the guidelines in November, saying they complied with the State Land Master Plan.

Brian Houseal, the council’s executive director, said the council will decide whether to appeal after reviewing the judge’s opinion.

Houseal said the council recognizes the economic importance of snowmobiling and supports the concept of community connectors, but he raised several objections to the guidelines.

Community connectors are supposed to avoid the interior of the Forest Preserve, but Houseal  said the trails will be permitted up to two miles from highways. The council contends community connectors should be located no more than five hundred feet from roads.

Houseal also argues that the Master Plan needs to be amended to define “community connector,” “mechanized groomer,” and other novel terms found in the guidelines.

State Supreme Court Justice Gerald W. Connolly dismissed most of the council’s claims on the ground that they were not “ripe” for litigation. The guidelines will be implemented only through unit management plans (UMPs) for individual tracts of Forest Preserve. The time to sue, the judge reasoned, is when UMPs are adopted.

The judge dismissed one of the council’s claims on procedural grounds.

Click the link below to read the full decision.

Adirondack Council v APA

Changes planned for Moose River Plains

Map of proposed land-classification changes in Moose River Plains.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has two interesting proposals for the Moose River Plains. One should make local officials happy. The other should make environmentalists happy.

The Moose River Plains is now classified as Wild Forest. DEC wants to reclassify twenty miles of dirt road as an “Intensive Use Area,” a designation usually reserved for state campgrounds.

The department does not intend to create a full-out campground, with showers, bathrooms, paved roads, and other modern amenities, but it expects to maintain up to 150 roadside campsites with fireplaces or fire rings, picnic tables, and outhouses.

The Intensive Use classification will allow more campsites than would be permitted under the Wild Forest classification. Without the classification change, in fact, DEC would be forced to close many of the existing campsites in the Plains.

The department also wants to reclassify more than fifteen thousand acres in the Plains as Wilderness, where all motorized use would be banned. As part of this proposal, the Otter Brook Road and Indian Lake Road would be permanently closed to motor vehicles, according to DEC.

The new Wilderness tract includes Little Moose Mountain, one of the Adirondacks’ hundred highest peaks, and Little Moose Lake, a large water body at the base of the mountain. The tract would be added to the West Canada Lake Wilderness.

Last month DEC touched off a controversy when it announced it lacked the resources to open the roads in the Moose River Plains (they are closed in winter). DEC has since agreed to open most of the roads—with the exception of Otter Brook and Indian Lake roads.

Asked why DEC wanted to expand the Wilderness Area, spokesman Yancey Roy replied in an e-mail: “For the overall balance of actions proposed.”

DEC will discuss its plans at Thursday’s meeting of the Adirondack Park Agency, which must schedule public hearings on the proposals.

Trying to save the VICs

Paul Smith’s College will host a meeting of elected officials and other interested parties next week to try to keep the state-run Visitor Interpretive Centers from closing.

Governor David Paterson has proposed shutting the two VICs, located in Paul Smiths and Newcomb, to save money. They would close by next January.

A naturalist with an owl at the Newcomb VIC.

The college leases to the state the land occupied by the Paul Smiths VIC—more than 2,700 acres.  “We recognize the importance of the VIC to the community,” said Kenneth Aaron, a college spokesman, “and we want to find a way to keep it open.”

He acknowledged that the college would have to pay an extra $7,000 or so in annual property taxes if the VIC were to close.

Run by the Adirondack Park Agency, both VICs house natural-history exhibits and offer trails for hiking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing.

Asked what would happen to the Paul Smiths trails if the VIC closes, Aaron replied: “That’s a good question. It’s up in the air.” He added that the college cannot afford to keep the VIC open on its own.

Among those invited to the meeting  are the region’s state legislators and representatives from the Adirondack Park Agency and environmental organizations.

The meeting , which is not open to the public, will be held on campus on the afternoon of Thursday, January 28.