Morning Read: Lake Placid’s GIANT boathouse
It’s a common refrain in the Adirondacks: We have too much regulation. People will do the right thing if left to their own devices. We’re the best stewards.
So how do we process this kind of thing? A new homeowner in Lake Placid raced the clock to skirt new APA boathouse rules and is building a 5,000+ square foot structure on the shore of the lake.
This from Chris Knight’s article in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise:
But neighbors and others who own homes on the lake say a 5,582-square-foot boathouse is just too big.
“It’s kind of a shocker,” said Robert Evans, a Glens Falls doctor who owns an adjacent seasonal home on the lake.
“Here we’ve got an old kid’s camp that’s been there for 50 years with a small boathouse, and all of a sudden the guy can put in a nine- or 11-slip boathouse. It’s going to be a monstrosity.”
So what do you think? Does size matter? And is this a notch in the belt for those who think strict zoning rules like those enforced by the APA are a good idea?
Tags: adirondacks, environment, land use
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This is such a touchy subject with so many levels of feelings. Regulations are a necessity, but how far does it need to go? As a waterfront property owner, I feel that those who wish not to see my buildings are being given more rights than I have as a property owner to have a view. What is it that makes people think they have more of a right than I? We’re the ones paying the taxes on the property, not the folks who consciously decide to go boating and paddling on a lake they know is populated. Did they really expect to get a wilderness experience on a lake where people live and build? Why shouldn’t the buildings be visible on a lake where there have been buildings for more than a century and a half? Obviously boathouse size is not going to be an issue anymore since the new APA regulations have taken effect. Yes, I think 5,000+ square feet is too big for our small lake, but it met all the zoning regulations in place at the time.
To me it all comes down to who owns the land and pays taxes on it. Why does a landowner have to bow to the wishes of a passerby? It makes little sense to me.
BTW- a 5K sf boathouse? If it were a museum would there be this outcry? I think not.
I’ll probably bother Bret4207 here but…
Since I don’t live there and never would, even if I wanted to waste the money I don’t have, so I don’t much care but…
It’s nice to know we live in a country where toys like boats are sometimes better housed than people.
To me it all comes down to how full of themselves some people can be.
Bret, your point of view is an extremely valid one. It is one I agree with in almost all circumstances… except when it comes to land inside a State Park governed by a regulatory agency. The reason land owners do not have carte blanche with their property here, and that they have to consider things above and beyond their own desires, is precisely because they live in the Adirondacks and not some rural anywhere. Here, value is placed on protecting things like shoreline ecosystems and consideration is given to natural aesthetics. Boathouse mansions that even approach this monstrosity are not consistent with either of those.
On a somewhat related note. This is just another obvious example to me of how the Adirondacks are a study in the progress of regulations from loose, user friendly, and general… to tight, burdensome, and overly specific. And the reason this happens, the reason it has to happen, is because there are always a few people who do whatever they can to skirt the system, find loopholes, and otherwise run afoul of the spirit of the more “reasonable” regulations.
If you write up regulations that are open to interpretation, people like this guy this will drive a boat through them (pun intended)… so what agencies must do over time is tighten up the regulations to prevent that from happening. The issue about “roof slopes” on boat houses, for example… this was not meant to burden or piss off average boat house owners, it was meant to curb the practice of a few people who were building huge shoreline decks on top of boathouses – structures that were obviously not meant as boathouses and that were obviously meant to get around the system.
The interesting part of the equation here is that when this happens… when a few bad apples play the system and in turn the agency has to become more restrictive… people seem to get upset at the agency, instead of the handful of yahoos that are the real reason for it happening.
Fortunately, for the ADKs, folks like Clarence Petty (RIP 2009) were around to guide the creation of the APA to steward the 1892 NYS Constitutional ‘forever wild’ & surrounding environs provisions from the likes of Brett & Palladino et al, otherwise the ADKs would look a lot more like Buffalo and Lake Placid, like the Love Canal.
Sure the guy owns the property and should be allowed to do as he wishes as long as he follows local building codes. But does he own the lake too? I thought the state of NY owned the lake. As a citizen of NY do I have any say in how large a structure can be built on the lake itself? I would say yes.
Dave and others, some of us were living inside the Blue Line before there was an APA. Some of us have left because of it. Aesthetics exist only in the eye of the beholder. If aesthetics are so important then Gore and Whiteface shouldn’t exist, the ski jump should be torn down, Blue Mt Museum should be leveled and all shoreline development should have a 100 yard setback. This is a completely bogus argument to me. Only a certain few “right thinking” individuals are allowed to determine what is acceptable aesthetically. That’s why the Park will one day contain nothing but the ultra wealthy and the poverty stricken worker class that serves them.
Beer- Last time I looked Placid was in the Park.
Bret,
One of the odd things I have noticed here in the Adirondacks is how us year-round residents seem to be always fighting to protect wealthy outsiders so they can walk all over us and drive is out of here except to allow a few of us to stay and be “the poverty stricken worker class that serves them.”
Aesthetically, I don’t see too much difference between an $80,000 house and a million $ cabin. The most un-aesthetic thing I do see up here are party barges. They are about the most ugly boats I have ever seen. Even a John boat looks better. Cris Craft and Garwoods are even better.
Perish the thought Pete! It’s Guideboats or nuthin’!
I don’t know about you, but when I still lived in the Park I was fighting for the right to use my land as I saw fit. What I ended up with was city natives who’d been in the area a few years complaining because I opened some scrub woods up and established a pretty darn nice garden, built a “rustic” barn and had the audacity to actually fix and repair equipment right there in my own front yard/garage. It wasn’t the natives complaining, it was the right thinking, eco-conscious, Sierra Club people giving me a hard time.
Things like that stick with you.
Yes, I know what you mean, Bret.
I often like to remark how one of the problems with the Adirondacks is how you can’t see the forest because the trees get in the way.
I have the good fortune to live next to the last dairy farm to be in operation in Hamilton County. The owner of the property cuts the large field once a year to keep it open. Thanks to him, I have some great views of the highest mountain in Hamilton County.
By the way, the only thing left of the farm beside the open field is an old wooden silo he keeps from falling down. I’ve seen artists stop along the road and paint the view.
Shoreline building restrictions are in place not only for aesthetic reasons, but to protect water quality. (Of course, I am fully mindful of the futility of trying to protect water quality on lakes where 2-stroke motorboats spew unburned oil and gasoline into the water.) Do you all really not care if someone builds whatever the hell he wants just because he can afford to?
Pete, there’s a dairy in Indian Lake??? Where?
There was – off Chamberlain Road.
If you drive down Big Brook Rd and look carefully at the vegetation, there are tell tale signs that would tell you there were farms along the road before it became unprofitable to continue.
Farming was never a good idea up here because of the soil and short growing season but what killed it off is what is killing many small farms today. Can’t compete with the big (subsidized) farming operations.
Yeah, there lots of farms in the Adirondacks until the 1950’s. In fact I got several pieces of horse drawn equipment from friends in Indian Lake that farmed into he 60’s. There was still a large potato farm over towards Minerva into the 70’s.
I worked Indian Lake from ’87 to ’95, I didn’t recall any dairys.
It closed operations in the late 60’s.
They also used to cut and sell ice from a pond and Christmas trees that grew naturally.
Earl Butz!