Frontier Town becomes catalyst for changing New York state land acquisitions

How a title issue around North Hudson easement is spurring the state to change policies

By Gwendolyn Craig

Frontier Town Campground, Equestrian and Day Use Area in the town of North Hudson is not quite “the gateway to the Adirondacks,” state and local officials had hoped for when they donned cowboy hats for its grand opening in 2018. 

Long ago title issues, one dating back more than 120 years, are delaying progress.

Since 2017, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has worked to purchase a 300-acre conservation easement on the property off of Exit 29 on the Adirondack Northway. It is near the former 1952-era theme park, Frontier Town. Though the state built the 90-acre campground and some equestrian and hiking trails, visions for a visitor center, event center, interactive exhibits and more have halted.

The sticking point? 

The state Attorney General’s Office requires perfect title, a string of legal documents outlining the property’s ownership, and will not purchase title insurance to cover any outstanding encumbrances. 

Instead of purchasing a $1,500 insurance policy, Town Attorney John Silvestri found himself in the precarious position of contacting 19 heirs of a frontier-era landowner in the unlikely event that the town’s ownership would be contested. The town of 250 residents has spent about $50,000 so far, and the financial toll could be even higher, depending on the outcome of litigation to resolve the title.

It’s “practically impossible” to have a perfect title, representatives of the New York State Land Title Association said, and the state policy extends beyond the town of North Hudson.

Land trust organizations across the state are holding onto land for New York—more than 100,000 acres at a fair market value of over $150 million. The backlog, they say, is in part due to the state’s title policy. In most real estate transactions, title issues would be covered under a 40-year title search plus the purchase of title insurance. Instead, land trust organizations report the state is searching back a century or more and refusing to purchase the insurance intended to cover unlikely ownership contestants. 

The title work takes more time and is preventing land trusts from purchasing and conserving new land. It also hinders the state from meeting its goals of conserving 30% of its lands and waters by 2030. The state has just five years to protect about 3 million more acres.

Title insurance, said Connie Prickett, communications director of the Adirondack Land Trust, is “a low-risk way for New York to expedite cooperative land protection projects.”

In a glimmer of hope for title insurance advocates, Gov. Kathy Hochul included in her annual agenda a hint that the state may change its policy. Stakeholders are eagerly awaiting more details.

“I am tickled pink that somebody finally woke up and realized what a terrible, expensive and wasteful policy…this is,” Silvestri said, adding that any changes won’t help the town of North Hudson now. “The cat’s out of the bag,” he said.

Gateway to the Adirondacks

In October 2018, DEC and town leaders celebrated the groundbreaking of the Frontier Town Campground, Equestrian and Day Use Area, an envisioned $32 million gateway. In 2019 it officially opened to campers and horseback riders. 

Aside from its quick access off the Adirondack Northway, the campground is just 8 miles east of the Boreas Ponds Tract, which boasts spectacular views of some of New York’s highest peaks including Marcy, Haystack, Gothics and Saddleback. 

For the last several years, North Hudson had an agreement with the DEC for use of the property. The state spent more than $20 million on the campground and day use area. It spent another $260,000 on improvements in May 2021. 

But when the DEC began investigating title records to fulfill a conservation easement, it dug up an issue on 25 acres as well as a foreclosure case from 1901 involving 204 acres. 

The foreclosure involved Abel Skiff, who purchased the land in the late 1800s. In the record, Skiff’s heirs retained three-eighths interest, while the mortgage holder foreclosed on five-eighths. 

Silvestri said the risk of Skiff’s relatives contesting the ownership was “almost nonexistent.” But the state Attorney General’s Office asked him to open what he called “a Pandora’s box that can’t be shut.” 

The town hired a private investigator and genealogist to research Skiff’s family tree. It has since contacted 19 heirs, including a couple of Michigan lawyers, a Florida rabbi, a Las Vegas Spanish teacher and a retired school principal from Washington state, via a quiet title lawsuit. Such a legal action, the town hopes, will lead to the Essex County Supreme Court ruling the town’s possession of the land for over a decade will null any of the heirs’ potential ownership claims.

Silvestri expressed amazement that the state made such an investment in the campground infrastructure before the title issues were resolved. The land without improvements would have been worth a fraction of what it is now, Silvestri said, should a court rule in the heirs’ favor. 

The heirs

When the Explorer spoke to some of the heirs last year, they were unsure what to make of the ordeal. Some called it “a Christmas present” while others said they’d like some say in what happens to the property, but were not interested in any financial recuperation.

Some family members believed Silvestri was trying to scam them. He got a call from a sheriff in Wisconsin to investigate if the potential land claim was real. At least one heir, Silvestri said, refuses the town’s contact.

An Essex County Supreme Court judge ruled last year that the town had not done enough to contact all the heirs and could not yet resort to advertising in newspapers as a last effort. Silvestri said he’s working on contacting everyone again in hopes of compiling enough evidence to be allowed to advertise the quiet title lawsuit where relatives refuse his communication.

The DEC said it continues working on the separate potential outstanding interest in a 25-acre portion of the parcel. It had no additional updates to provide on either title issue.

 “I’ve been a lawyer for over 40 years and this has been a pain,” Silvestri said.

A poster child for title insurance

North Hudson became a poster child for the fact that New York is the only state in the nation that does not accept title insurance for state land conservation. The state of Iowa also does not accept private title insurance, but it has a program that provides title coverage through the state.

Catherine Canino, president of the New York State Land Title Association, called the state’s desire for perfect title “practically impossible. A title with not a single lien, not a single overlap, not a single problem is rare.”

The title issue in North Hudson, she said, is not uncommon, especially in upstate communities where generational and overlapping ownership dating back so far can complicate the chain of title.

“Governments are wasting time and money trying to fix title issues such as those facing Frontier Town,” she said. “But if they had title insurance, the burden would have been on the title company to provide clear title.”

The Adirondack Land Trust said use of title insurance would help its efforts as well. While it hasn’t had a specific title issue hanging up its land conservation work with the state, Prickett said the extra legwork appears to be taking longer and holding up state land acquisitions.

Land trust organizations have also said a lack of staffing at the DEC and AG’s Office to do title research, appraisals and other conservation work has slowed the process over the years. 

For example, the Adirondack Land Trust held 200 acres near Poke-O-Moonshine for two years before the state acquired it for the Forest Preserve in 2008. Prickett said the state took about six years to purchase the Four Peaks Tract in the town of Jay, which DEC added to the Forest Preserve last year.

The Adirondack Land Trust is currently holding six properties, about 300 acres, for transfer to the state Forest Preserve. Prickett said 25 acres were donated to the land trust and will be donated to the state. The rest of parcels the land trust paid a cumulative $485,000.

“Holding properties destined for state ownership costs land trusts money that could otherwise be used to protect additional lands,” Prickett said.

Kathy Moser, chief conservation officer at the Open Space Institute, said the lack of title insurance is impacting her organization. As of last year, OSI was holding seven properties the state plans to purchase valued at $7.8 million in Adirondack Forest Preserve counties and five conservation easements totaling $2.3 million. 

The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), which was awarded a $500,000 Environmental Protection Fund grant in 2021 for its Cascade Welcome Center in the town of North Elba, has yet to see the money to assist with its approximately $2.5 million purchase. Conservation easement hangups with the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation were initially at the root of the delay. 

Julia Goren, interim executive director of ADK, said the organization and Parks Department have finally signed an easement agreement, but are now waiting for the title review process, which has been going on for about six months, to finish. After, ADK hopes to receive its 2021 funding.

Andy Zepp, president of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, told lawmakers at a Jan. 28 budget hearing that the current title review process is one of the reasons the land trust is still holding 21 properties at $7 million for the state. Zepp said it was a lot for his small organization.

 In 2023, Zepp said, New York only acquired 3,800 acres statewide at a value of $6.5 million.

The state’s slow land acquisition is also bringing to question whether the state will be able to meet its land conservation goals of protecting 30% of its lands and waters by 2030.

Sean Mahar, interim DEC commissioner, told lawmakers at the end of January that the state had protected about 20% so far.

Claudia Braymer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, said the state needs to protect approximately 3 million more acres to reach its goals. Protect and other organizations are also calling on the state to increase its budget for land acquisitions.

The DEC told the Explorer it “is committed to achieving the conservation objectives,” adding that there is a “need for a rigorous due diligence process for any conservation acquisition that uses public resources.”

The state’s next steps

Silvestri laughed when he heard about the very last paragraph of Hochul’s 140-page State of the State agenda released at the beginning of January. 

Under a section called “Make Open Space Accessible for All,” the Hochul administration recognized “the need for streamlined processes” for land conservation and suggested it would allow “the use of title insurance to expedite land acquisitions, granting the Department of Environmental Conservation the authority to independently acquire conservation easements, and reducing the financial hurdles faced by nonprofit organizations in their land conservation efforts.”

“It’s about time,” Silvestri said.

The DEC said it “applauds Gov. Hochul’s proposal,” as did many advocates.

But when Hochul released her proposed $252 billion executive budget in mid-January, there was no mention of title insurance.

OSI, the Adirondack Mountain Club, the New York chapter of The Nature Conservancy and others asked lawmakers to put title insurance into the state Assembly and Senate’s one-house budgets should Hochul not include it in her 30-day budget amendments. 

The legislature and governor’s office have until April 1 to decide on a final budget. As of press time, it was unclear how title insurance may be included.

Other steps to assist with the land acquisition process were included in Hochul’s proposal, including a conservation exemption from the state’s mansion tax for land trusts and nonprofits. Hochul also proposed allowing the DEC to negotiate and acquire land conservation easements on its own. 

During a January budget hearing, lawmakers asked Mahar about the status of the title insurance issue missing from the governor’s budget.

“We are in active conversations with the Office of the Attorney General right now regarding that,” Mahar said. “If we are unable to reach some agreement and consensus … we will be coming back to you to discuss additional legislation that may be necessary.”

Top photo: A multi-use trail at the Frontier Town Campground, Equestrian and Day Use Area in North Hudson. Photo by Nancie Battaglia