APA Approves FrontStreet Mountain Development in North Creek

Earlier in April, the Adirondack Park Agency voted to give FrontStreet Mountain Development (FSMD) a permit to develop the Ski Bowl Village, located on Hamlet and Low Intensity Use lands across Rt. 28 from the village of North Creek. The sixphase development calls for two hotels, 294 lodging rooms, 149 townhouse units, 18 single ski-in, ski-out family homes, a golf course and 12600 linear feet of new roads. The vote was 8-1 with one abstention. AFPA’s calls to bring this project to an adjudicatory public hearing, while rejected, still received much discussion by APA members and staff, with several APA leaders expressing appreciation to Dan Plumley for our testimony. Commissioner Dick Booth undertook very effectively his first major leadership role on a major project, carrying the call for an adjudicatory hearing without any equivocation, stressing 4 of our major issues highlighted in our submissions: 1. impacts to the Forest Preserve; 2. affordable housing needs and lack of permit provisions; 3. protection of municipal interests in event of project failure; 4. and the water quality and watershed concerns. Other permit conditions that require a full professional Independent Environmental Monitor (IEM) and comprehensive energy use and conservation provisions echoed AFPA’s recommendations (see work of Mike DeWein, below). Commissioner Lani Ulrich found the movie AFPA provided to each member, "Resorting to Madness: Taking Back our Mountain Communities,” very valuable, fostering deeper understanding of resort community sustainability. Unfortunately, APA’s actions on FSMD in North Creek fail to assess in any meaningful way the off-site impacts or impacts on the character and economies of the hamlet and taxpayers of North Creek and Johnsburg and the wider area. The most significant failing, of course, was the APA’s refusal to take the key issues to adjudicatory public hearing.

AFPA's Mike DeWein helping APA tackle energy efficiency

Mike DeWein, technical director of the Building Codes Assistance Project of the Alliance to Save Energy, is a national expert on building codes and their relationship to energy conservation and efficiency. BCAP is the only national project aimed at adoption and implementation of energy efficiency codes nationwide. AFPA has a contract with Mike to further the efforts of the Energy $mart Park Initiative (E$PI). In that AFPA capacity, Mike is working closely with the Adirondack Park Agency to find ways to adopt very significant energy conservation provisions and requirements in APA permits. FrontStreet Mountain Development is an excellent example. Precedent setting energy impact and conservation provisions were incorporated in the FSMD permit, including 12 separate detailed permit conditions addressing energy conservation measures, Energy Star labeled homes, LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) eligibility criteria performance on hotel and inns and a major provision for an Integrated Energy and Environmental Plan (IEEM) that will be replicated in future Agency development permits on both private land and state projects. This plan shall “describe all energy and water related programs and practices intended to be implemented in the final design, construction and operation of the project.” No previous APA permit has received such detailed conditions pertaining to energy issues, and much of the credit for this progress is the result of technical assistance and educational outreach to APA staff by AFPA’s Mike DeWein and Mike DiNunzio.

AFPA signs onto State Land Taxation Brief

The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks says that State tax payments on the publicly-owned “forever wild” Forest Preserve in the Adirondack and Catskill regions are an essential and inviolate commitment by the State of New York on behalf of every New Yorker who benefits from the wildlife, wilderness, watershed, and recreational benefits the Forest Preserve provides. For this reason, we have signed onto a recent legal brief as Friend of the Court to the Attorney General’s challenge of Chautauqua County Supreme Court Judge Timothy Walker’s decision from last fall. That decision questions the arbitrary nature, equity and fairness of State tax payments on all types of State land, including Forest Preserve. The Attorney General is arguing that Judge Walker has overstepped his judicial role and is attempting to legislate from the bench. The brief fully describes why and how State payments on the Forest Preserve since 1885 have been entirely rationale, serving a vitally important State purpose, and is uniformly applied to all local taxing jurisdictions with Forest Preserve in the Adirondack and Catskill Parks.

Adirondack Club and Resort: Where matters stand

The developer, Michael Foxman, has on numerous occasions blamed the “process” for his delays, when in fact he has refused APA and DEC requests that he spend money to update his APA application, submit new documents and complete DEC applications for up to five DEC permits for stormwater and sewage discharges. The applicant also continues to propose Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) whereby for a period of 20 years payments from future resort homeowners would first go to reimburse bond holders, and only secondarily go into Village, Town and School District coffers. Local governments must approve these PILOT arrangements, but in essence the developer is proposing that taxpayers of limited means in Tupper Lake be forced to subsidize wealthy second home owners and the burdensome government services they require. It is alleged that Mr. Foxman has not paid any taxes on the lands he does own, the former Tupper Lake Ski Area. He holds an option to buy the majority of the 6000-acres proposed for development. In the current economic climate, there are questions whether any institution would offer a letter of credit backing private revenue bonds for this speculative development. In lieu of beginning the hearing, Foxman has asked the adjudicatory law judge to schedule a mediation sessions in April and May, 2008. Mediation will be open-ended, and start with some issues identified by that order. Assuming progress, it will then move to priority issues raised by the parties. AFPA can withdraw at any time. The Adirondack Park Agency can make a final determination on the application only upon the evidence collected through the public hearing.

107th Annual Meeting in Lake Placid

AFPA will hold its 107th annual membership meeting on Thursday, May 15, 2008 beginning at 10:00 AM at the Mirror Lake Inn in Lake Placid. Registration begins at 9:00 AM. The theme for the meeting is “A Gift of Wildness: Managing the Adirondack Forest Preserve for Present and Future Generations.” The meeting is open to the public as well as to members. AFPA welcomes all to meet its conservation team, staff and trustees. The featured after-lunch speaker is Chris Amato, Department of Environmental Conservation Assistant Commissioner for Natural Resources, who will address "What is Wild? Managing the Forest Preserve to Protect and Restore Wilderness.” To reserve your place, please contact April at 377-1452, Ext. 304. For more, go to www.protectadks.org

Upcoming Events

June 7: Open House and 100th Anniversary Celebration: The Life of Paul Schaefer at AFPA’s Center for the Forest Preserve, Niskayuna

June 12-13: Adirondack Energy $mart Park Initiative’s Energy Forum, Lake Placid (by invitation)

August 22: Howard Zahniser Adirondack Awards Dinner, Wild Center, Tupper Lake

Paul Schaefer, Centennial of his birth

Paul Schaefer - conservationist, hunter, fisher, guide, photographer, film-maker, author and home builder and restorer of fine Adirondack and Dutch-style homes and camps - was a leader in almost every conservation battle for the Adirondack woods and waters between 1930 and his death in 1996. In cooperation with our Adirondack Research Library, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth with a year-long series of stories, articles on our web site, presentations and features at our Center in Niskayuna, which Paul built and where he lived with his remarkable wife Carolyn and their four children – all of whom be became Adirondack 46-ers. For more about Paul, please visit our web site and visit his former home, now AFPA’s Center for the Forest Preserve, including our Open House on June 7th.

Paul Schaefer: More Stories from this Adirondack Champion of Conservation

An Earth Day story: Niskayuna High School students asked Paul to give an Earth Day talk. Paul was going to come over to show the film or slides of the Park, but he couldn’t make it, so he asked Bill White to do it in his stead. The girl that asked Paul said “kids my age just aren’t interested in the environment. They’re not motivated.” Paul responded, “I’m sorry to hear that but it doesn’t matter how many show up.” “Only 25 might show up,” she responded. Paul said “Well, we’ll put it on for 25.”

So, Bill White goes over to the school on Earth Day and just two people show up: the girl and her teacher. Bill White was so disappointed when he reported to Paul. Paul said “Bill, you’ve got to remember that in 1946 I went out to Broome County, Binghamton, and we went all that way to talk about the Moose River fight and only 15 people turned out. Oh, it was sure discouraging to have brought ourselves and our information so far for only 15, but remember Bill, among the fifteen that night, we needed thousands of brochures to be distributed and a man stood up and said “you give me 50,000 of those brochures and I could use another 50,000 and I will distribute every one of them.” It turned out that Broome County turned out the most votes to defeat the Panther Mountain Dam proposal. Never underestimate that one person in 15…or among 2.

It’s that time of year again! Blue skies, golden sunshine, flowers in shades of yellow and green and purple are announcing the season of rebirth and renewal — spring. As nature recommits to a new beginning, we ask our members to once again commit their support for the mission of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks (AFPA). When your membership renewal arrives in your home this spring, consider how important it is to renew your commitment to “sustain the ecological integrity and mutual well being of the natural and human communities of the Adirondack Park.”

Thank you.

That’s all for now,
Dave Gibson, Executive Director
The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks
897 St. Davids Lane, Niskayuna, NY 12309

www.protectadks.org

518-377-1452, Ext. 301