For Immediate Release
January 3, 2005
Contact: David Gibson, 518-377-1452
Two Major Development Projects on the APA's
January Agenda Require more Scrutiny and Public Input
Two projects with potentially large and precedent-setting impacts on the Adirondack Park come before the Adirondack Park Agency this month when it meets on January 13-14 in Ray Brook. Each project poses significant threats to the Park's natural and human communities and its wild character.
1. Preserve on Tupper Lake: The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks (AfPA) is urging the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) not to rush to judgment in deciding whether to grant conceptual approval for the so-called "Preserve on Tupper Lake." This development proposal is a sprawling subdivision and development concept proposed for the shoreline of Tupper Lake, the ski slopes of Mt. Morris and thousands of acres of undeveloped adjoining forests that combined form one of the largest development proposals ever to come before the Agency. Inexplicably, the Agency seems to have committed itself to make a decision regarding conceptual approval of the project in January, even though a host of major questions about this newly unveiled proposal have yet to be answered.
"The public only learned about this project at a presentation in early December. For such a complex project, it would be highly unusual for the Agency to render a judgment in January," says David Gibson, the Association's Executive Director. The Agency has set a January 8 deadline for public comment on the project concept. The project involves the subdivision of 4,300 acres of presently intact, unfragmented forest in the heart of the Adirondack Park into 826 new condo/hotel units, townhouses and dwellings and two-dozen so-called "Great Camp Lots," as well as the redevelopment of the 400-acre former Big Tupper Ski Area and the development of a new boat marina on Tupper Lake.
"The Agency should pause and give its staff the time to assure that the concept applicant has provided sufficient information about this massive project and the land on which it is proposed. Otherwise, the Agency cannot possibly give due consideration to the question of whether conceptual approval is appropriate or not. There is no basis in Agency regulations that requires any judgment to be rendered this month," says Gibson.
There is a significant risk, writes the Association, that should conceptual approval be prematurely granted "the balance of the review of the project will be limited to the construction details and the larger questions will be swept aside." The Association has written a seven-page letter to the Agency about the project concept, noting concerns about its potential to fragment thousands of acres of Adirondack hardwood forest classified as Resource Management, to erode the Park's open space character, damage water quality of Tupper Lake and threaten the viability of neighboring ski facilities in the Park. The letter also raises concerns about the developer's fiscal soundness and ability to carry out the project, especially considering the high degree of risk that the local community must assume if development moves forward.
The Association writes that the project concept of creating 25 "great camp lots" of 80-acres each "is an obvious marketing ploy. This is Resource Management land that should continue to be managed as it has been historically.
By statute, Resource Management lands are required to be protected and managed to enhance forest, agricultural, recreational and open space resources." The developer is proposing residential subdivision in Resource Management "for private pecuniary purposes without a shred of public or resource protection consideration," the Association concludes.
2. Saratoga County Communication Towers: The other big decision on the Agency's January agenda is whether or not to schedule a public hearing in connection with the emergency communication towers, roads and other development proposed on currently undeveloped mountains and mountain summits in northern Saratoga County.
The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks believes that the Towers project as submitted violates the Agency Act and its Towers Policy that says "new telecommunications towers located within the Adirondack Park will be located to avoid undue adverse impacts in such a manner as to be substantially invisible."
The Association is urging the APA to schedule a public hearing "to give full airing of relevant issues on this contentious, controversial, precedential and complex proposal. This project meets all the criteria that trigger a public hearing in the Agency's regulations," says the Association's Dave Gibson. "The tower infrastructure and associated development is large, the proposal is complex, the public interest high, the number of significant issues extensive, and the information that needs presentation potentially very helpful to the Agency in making its decision.
A public hearing is clearly called for by this application."
The letters from the Association to the APA on both projects can be viewed here. The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks is a non-profit, member-supported organization founded in 1901 to protect the Forest Preserve and defend the "forever wild" clause of the NYS Constitution. The Association is dedicated to sustaining the ecological integrity and mutual well being of the natural and human communities of the Adirondack Park. The Association promotes strategies to realize the potential of the Park as a world model of integrated conservation in wild and lived-in landscapes.