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Adirondack Club
and Resort
Preserve Associates are proposing
to develop the former Big Tupper Ski Area into the “Adirondack
Club and Resort (ACR).” The development will cover 6,400
acres including the Oval Wood Dish (OWD) lands and include approximately
700 living units. Twenty-four of these units would be "great
camp lots" consisting of 50 or more acres each. In addition,
the mega-proposal includes ridgeline development, a shooting
school, and the revitalization of the existing local ski slope.
This projects
is one of the largest real estate development schemes ever to
come before the Adirondack Park Agency for approval.
Click here
to see a map of the proposed development.
For the Council's most recent press release on this project,
click here.
Click here
to read a letter-to-the editor by the Adirondack Council on the
project.
The Council will be dedicating
significant conservation and advocacy staff time toward this
project in the coming two months. The first major hurdle - and
I'm afraid there will be many more - was to ensure that the Adirondack
Park Agency (APA) conducts a thorough legal review of the project
through an Adjudicatory Hearing.
Read excerpts from project reviews by
the APA staff and the Hudson Group, LLC, an independent consultant
reviewing the project on behalf of the Town of Tupper Lake.
The following information is detailed, providing you with specifics
related to the Council's concerns about this project.
In its final meeting before Governor Pataki left office, the
Adirondack Park Agency (APA) announced that they would initiate
the 60 day public review process which will culminate in the
issuance of a permit for the massive Adirondack Club and Resort
project or a decision to send the project to an Adjudicatory
Hearing.
The Adirondack Council firmly supports the Town of Tupper Lake's
desire to reopen the ski area, revitalize the downtown, encourage
economic development, and maintain its working forest. But
this project would not accomplish these goals. Instead, it will
have the opposite effect. The Council's principal concerns are
fragmentation of the backcountry and disruption of wildlife habitat,
negative impacts to water quality, and visual impacts from upland
development.
Impacts on the Park
Backcountry Fragmentation
The "great camp lots" will fragment hundreds of acres
of intact forest lands with roads, driveways
and houses. Recent studies by the Wildlife Conservation Society
explain the negative impacts of rural sprawl in the Adirondacks
and the need to reduce the impacts of large lot subdivisions
across the private forests of the entire Park. None of the proposed
development would be in the Village of Tupper Lake, use existing
infrastructure or help its downtown financially.
Upland Development
Approximately 700 housing units are planned near the ski area
on the steep slopes and shallow
soils of Mt. Morris. This high number of units will require the
removal of hundreds of acres of trees, increase soil erosion,
and degrade water quality in nearby lakes. The units will also
be highly visible for miles during both day and night.
Water Quality
The project proposes two community sewage treatment plants to
serve the development. One plant would discharge over 10,000
gallons a day of chemically treated effluent into Cranberry Pond,
once used as a Tupper Lake reservoir. This same water body will
also be used to supply water to snow-making machines on the ski
slopes, forever altering its natural ecosystem. The second sewage
treatment plant will discharge additional thousands of gallons
of effluent into Lake Simond, where local residents with homes
on the lake recently made costly upgrades to their individual
septic systems to improve this shallow lake's water quality.
Financing
Due to the financial risk related to second home and condo developments
around small ski areas such as Big Tupper, the Preserve Associates
have not yet attracted major financial backing. Their hope is
to secure the project permits from the APA, and then request
that the Franklin County Industrial Development Agency (IDA)
provide $54 million in private long-term bonds that will be paid
back through the sales of the homes and condos. In addition,
the developer hopes that the Town of Tupper Lake will approve
a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) for the first ten years to
alleviate the property tax burdens on the developer and buyers.
The Adirondack Council would support IDA
bonds for public benefit such as refurbishing the ski-slope and
revitalizing the Village of Tupper Lake, but finds it difficult
to agree that IDA bonds should be used to finance a high-end
second home resort.
Public
Hearings
On January 10, the APA held a Legislative Hearing on the ACR
project. This hearing was a venue for citizens, organizations,
and other concerned parties to comment on all aspects of the
proposal.
While this is a good start, the Council believes a larger, more
informative hearing must be held before a decision on a project
of this magnitude can be made. According to APA policy, in order
to modify a proposal at the APA, a formal, courtroom style Adjudicatory
Hearing is necessary. The Adirondack Park Agency staff's recently
recommended that the project be sent to an adjudicatory hearing.
The Commissioners took the correct action at the Agency meeting
in February and voted to send the ACR project to adjudicatory
hearing.
At the Adjudicatory Hearing, intricate details of such complex
projects are investigated. Issues to be heard before an Administrative
Law Judge are determined. Expert witnesses, including wildlife
biologists, landscape architects, and hydrologists testify on
the project design. Following the testimony of experts |
We would appreciate your additional financial support to fight
this huge project and take legal action to ensure the APA gives
it the scrutiny it deserves. You have been generous in the past,
and we appreciate it. Your contribution now will help ensure
that the Adjudicatory Hearing is comprehensive and all impacts
are investigated.
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and the project applicant,
and after examining a great deal of documentation, the Agency
staff will make a recommendation on how the APA should move forward
with the proposed project.
The Adjudicatory Hearing process will be a vital step in ensuring
that any development allowed as part of the ACR proposal is appropriate
for the scope and character of the existing community, does not
negatively impact the environment, and does not put a heavy financial
burden on year-round residents of Tupper Lake.
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