Protect seeks APA e-mails with Cuomo staff

Site of the proposed Adirondack Club and Resort. Photo by Carl Heilman II.

Protect the Adirondacks and the Sierra Club want to see e-mails between the Adirondack Park Agency and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s staff to determine if the governor’s office improperly influenced the APA’s approval of a massive resort in Tupper Lake.

John Caffry, the attorney for the two environmental groups, said the APA acknowledges that the APA and Executive Chamber exchanged e-mails on the project, but the agency refuses to divulge them.

“There is a school of thought that the governor’s office dictated the APA vote,” Caffry said, though he conceded that he doesn’t know that to be the case.

“Obviously they were very involved in the process; we don’t know what they said yet,” Caffry added.

Protect and the Sierra Club recently filed court papers seeking to force the APA to divulge the e-mails and as well as other communications, including those between the agency and the developer, Preserve Associates. They also want to take sworn depositions from all the people who took part in these communications.

The two green groups filed a lawsuit against the APA and Preserve Associates after the agency’s commissioners voted 11-1 in January to approve the resort. The suit contends that the project violates APA regulations meant to protect privately owned timberlands.

The commissioners were supposed to base their vote on the record of an adjudicatory hearing and not engage in “ex parte” discussions with the APA’s hearing staff, the developers, or other outsiders without the knowledge of all the parties to the hearing. Protect and Sierra contend that the APA violated the ex parte rule.

The groups have asked the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court to allow them to take depositions and force the APA to turn over the e-mails and other communications. The Appellate Division will consider the motion next month.

APA spokesman Keith McKeever could not be reached for comment. However, in the past he has denied that improper ex parte commissions took place.

Click here to read a news release from Protect and the Sierra Club. It includes links to documents filed in the motion.

FULL DISCLOSURE: John Caffry is defending me against landowners who contend I trespassed when I paddled through their property.

Groups say ACR permits expired

Preserve Associates plans to build a resort near the Big Tupper Ski Area. Photo by Carl Heilman II.

Protect the Adirondacks and the Sierra Club contend that the permits for the Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake have expired and the developer must begin the lengthy application process all over again.

In January, the Adirondack Park Agency approved the permits with conditions. Among them, the developers were told to conduct a wildlife survey.

John Caffry, the attorney for the two environmental groups, asserts in a letter to the APA that under the APA Act, permits expire if the conditions are not met after six months. He says the deadline passed on July 31.

“If the Project Sponsor wishes to proceed with the Project, it will have to begin the application process again,” Caffry wrote.

The original application process took more than seven years.

APA spokesman Keith McKeever denied today that the permits have expired. “The ACR Project Order specifies a 10 year time period for the project sponsor to complete all requirements necessary to obtain permits and convey the first authorized lot,” he said in an e-mail.

Protect the Adirondacks and the Sierra Club are suing the APA in an effort to nullify approval of the resort. The groups contend that the development would, among other things, violate regulations intended to protect tracts classified as Resource Management, the strictest of the agency’s six zoning categories for private lands.

The lawsuit has angered residents in Tupper Lake who see the resort as an economic boon for the community.

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. The Great Camp estates would subdivide a large tract of timberlands classified as Resource Management.

Click here to read the news release of Protect the Adirondacks and Caffry’s letter to the APA.

Protect files brief in Tupper Lake suit

Protect the Adirondacks has submitted a lengthy reply brief in its lawsuit against the Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake. Protect is responding to the claims of the Adirondack Park Agency in its answer to the suit.

Among other things, Protect contends the project violates regulations for lands classified as Resource Management, the APA’s strictest zoning category for private property.

Protect also reasserts that the APA staff conducted illegal negotiations with the developers and that the agency approved the project without requiring a wildlife study beforehand.

We haven’t had time to read the brief in its entirety, but those interested can read it themselves by clicking the link below.

Protect reply brief

You can find a news release and links to more documents on Protect’s website.

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.