ADIRONDACK & CONSERVATION GROUPS SEEK PERMISSION TO JOIN LAWSUIT & WIN BACK STATE TAX PAYMENTS TO LOCAL GOV’T State’s Property Tax Payments on Adirondack Forest Preserve Help Support Park’s Economy & Schools; Compensates for ‘Forever Wild’ Development Ban

A coalition of Adirondack and conservation organizations is seeking permission from the Appellate Division of NYS Supreme Court to join in the state’s legal defense of its tax payments to local governments in areas where the state owns large tracts of forest land.  Those payments were threatened by a lower court decision last October.

The coalition asking permission to join in the state’s defense of property tax payments to local governments is comprised of the Adirondack Council, Open Space Conservancy, Adirondack Landowners Association, Adirondack Mountain Club, Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks, Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, and Audubon New York.

The deadline for such requests is May 19.  The case is being heard by the Appellate Division’s Fourth Department in Rochester.  The case is expected to be heard in September.  Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is defending the state.  The groups filed their “friend of the court” brief in an effort to assist the attorney general.

At stake is more than $70 million in annual property tax payments to 92 towns, 12 counties and dozens of school districts in the Adirondack Park alone, on 2.7 million acres of constitutionally protected NYS Forest Preserve.  Statewide, close to $200 million in annual revenue to local governments is at stake.

Last fall, a NYS Supreme Court justice ruled that all state property tax payments to local government must stop.  In that case (Dillenburg vs. New York State, 2007) a Chautauqua County Town of Arkwright supervisor sued the state because it would not pay taxes on state-owned forest lands in the town, although it made payments to other towns for similar forest lands.

The judge ruled that the town was right in claiming unfair treatment and issued an order halting all state tax payments to all local governments.  The judge voluntarily held-off on the execution of his order, allowing the state time to appeal the decision before the payments to local governments are stopped.

Ironically, the judge also added that the state tax payments to local governments in the Adirondack and Catskill parks were both the oldest (established in 1886) and most legitimate, having been created with a clear public purpose in mind. However, he refused to exclude them from his ruling.

Laws passed after 1886 granting tax payments to communities outside the two wilderness parks have been poorly justified, he ruled.  Rather than sort out which were legitimate and which were not, the judge ruled that all state tax payments to local governments must stop.

“The Legislature had good reasons for allowing the state to be taxed on state Forest Preserve by local towns, villages, counties and school districts in the Catskills and Adirondacks,” said Deborah Meyer DeWan, Interim Executive Director of The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development.  “Those reasons still apply today.  They are state parks, serving a statewide purpose.  The Forest Preserve protects pure water and standing forests, while providing tourism revenue.

“Local governments provide road access to many preserve lands and many of the services needed by tourists,” said Brian L. Houseal, Executive Director of the Adirondack Council.  “Local governments help fight forest fires and also arrest, prosecute and incarcerate those who steal timber and poach wildlife from the Forest Preserve.”

“It was inappropriate for the lower court in this case to lump the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves in with other state forest lands," said Neil Woodworth, Executive Director of the Adirondack Mountain Club. "Tax payments on non-Forest Preserve lands were set up at different times for different reasons. The payments on Forest Preserve lands have received broad-based public support and have been upheld by New York's courts over the past 122 years."

"The Association views the payment of taxes on the Forest Preserve as a permanent, essential and inviolate commitment from the people of the state, who benefit so greatly from the preserve, to the taxing districts in which those lands are located,” said David H. Gibson, Executive Director of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks.  “We are glad to join a large Adirondack coalition appealing this decision."

“All of the towns in the Adirondacks and Catskills have a more solid claim to state tax payments than the Town of Arkwright, which filed the original complaint, or any other town outside those two parks,” said Houseal of the Adirondack Council.  “For example, there is nothing stopping local contractors from harvesting trees on state lands outside the two parks.  However, timber harvesting is banned on Forest Preserve lands inside the parks, as is all private or commercial development.  It is very unlikely that we will receive support from local governments for any new purchases of Forest Preserve in the Adirondacks or Catskills if the tax-payments aren’t secure.  If the Forest Preserve becomes tax-exempt, it will be seen as a burden to local taxpayers, not an asset.  Some Adirondack towns are more than 70 percent state-owned Forest Preserve.”

The groups cited a number of court cases in which other state tax payment plans were found to have little or no lawful justification, but were upheld anyway.  Those courts didn’t substitute their own beliefs for the judgment of the duly elected NYS Legislature.  The groups urged the Appellate Division panel to exercise the same caution and overrule the lower court, which did not.  The organizations are being represented by Marc S. Gerstman of Albany, former chief counsel for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, which oversees most state-owned forest lands.