The Adirondack Park Agency, which vets construction projects in New York's constitutionally protected Adirondack Park, is considering a huge project in Tupper Lake. The Adirondack Club and Resort is the largest development ever considered by the Agency. And it is not without controversy.
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise notes that the project would include a ski center, marina, shooting school, 60-unit inn, 675 single-family and multiple-family residential dwelling units and 24 “great camp” lots.
This is an enormous project. Even though Tupper Lake is one of the most populous towns in the Park, it has only a little more than 6000 residents.
Supporters argue that the resort would revitalize the old logging town. Critics warn that the gargantuan project would fundamentally ruin the intimate and rural nature of town. They also have environmental concerns and worries about whether the infrastructure could handle such an relatively massive influx of people.
The APA staff reported: "Questions remain over financing of the project. The applicant plans to apply for bonds through the Franklin County Industrial Development Agency for $45 million for wastewater, water, roads and electric infrastructure. Furthermore, the developer will ask for a payment in lieu of taxes arrangement from the town, county and local school district to help repay the bonds over at least 20 years.
The resort project could potentially affect natural resources including surrounding lakes, and discharge from treated wastewater could potentially affect surrounding drinking water quality"
It added: "Public safety questions remain; the design calls for a number of dead-end roads which, if blocked, would have no alternative exits. Water for the eastern portion of the subdivision would be fed by pumps that might be inadequate to feed hydrants in the event of a large fire, the staff noted. The proposed Orvis-brand shooting school, in the words of the agency staff, “will produce day-long and week-long noise from shooting which will be intrusive and incompatible with nearby rural residential uses and open space recreational uses."
It also raised concerns about the resort's affect on local affordable housing.
North Country Public Radio has a profile of Michael Foxman, the Pennsylvania lawyer and developer who's behind the behemoth resort.
The public broadcaster also reported on the APA hearings on the resort and on the agency's decision to order further hearings which might include a sweeping review of the gigantic project.
5 comments:
I know you cannot express your opinion about this mega resort plan for tiny Tupper Lake as it will call into question from both sides every news piece you thereafter publish on the Adirondack Club and Resort. I do question, however, your acceptance at face value the statements recently made in your profile of Michael Foxman, by Mr. Foxman. What research have you done to verify his claims of experience in the real estate or realty subdivision fields? You will be hard-pressed to discover any experience there, especially of his lead in any other project of the scale proposed for Tupper Lake. "Leopards never change their spots", said Sister Theresa Melina to a younger Jack over forty years ago. And so it is with Mr. Foxman, redoing his quicktalking of the 1980's. Thanks are in order for the links you added to the NCPR website, however. We now challange you to identify his current "investors" and to investigate why his former investors have aparrently abandoned him. We have enjoyed your blog.
jmdale, I think this comment should be directed at NCPR who did the (news) reporting in question. I think my skepticism about the project is made pretty clear in my (opinion) essay.
Contrarian: Fairly stated. I concede your point.
A minor point, but Tupper Lake has a population of 3935 as of the last census in 2000.
PCS, actually we're both correct. Your figures are for the village, mine for the town. The project is being proposed in the town so that's why I used those numbers.
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