Big Tupper debate enters final stage
Today is a big day in the long debate over the Adirondack Club and Resort project in Tupper Lake.
The Adirondack Park Agency is resuming a public hearing process with two public sessions to take comments on the proposed project.
The first session begins at 3:30 this afternoon, with the hearing slated to resume at 7pm this evening.
Both sessions are at the LP Quinn Elementary school.
The Big Tupper resort is one of the biggest and most complex projects ever proposed for the Park, with more than six hundred homes and condos.
Green groups have continued to raise concerns about its environmental impact and the economic viability of the resort.
Tupper Lake’s chamber of commerce has endorsed the project, arguing that it could revitalize the community’s sagging economy.
After half a decade of review and debate, this is the final round of hearings before the Adirondack Park Agency makes its decision on the resort.
A final vote could come as early as this summer. I’ll have a full report on today’s hearing tomorrow during the 8 O’clock Hour.
Is this a threat or a promise.
This story is older than a Greek tragedy.
Boring!
I will be glad when this one is over. Its not boring (to me) but it is really contentious. Almost as bad as the WalMart story.
Sure there has been contention but I think in the end folks did begin to understand what makes the other side tick and why.
I would say that this has been a contentious but not unhealthy process. It did take forever.
Im not so sure about folks understanding the other side – at least in a sympathetic sense. Certainly from all the letters to the newspaper by the Tupper business community (and Foxman himself), I got the sense that the approach was to demonize the opposition. The environmentalists were trying to be non-demons to refute the demonization, but I didnt get the sense from them either that they were willing to consider that dying businesses in Tupper might be saved by the ACR. Rather they argued that the ACR might be bad for business (if it folds).
This was the easy part. Now they have to build the things and sell them and get financing and so on and so forth.
Generally I support this project. But I think that it is terrible that people were booing and harassing the few people who spoke in opposition to the project yesterday. That is just pathetic, and I think that these folks should be ashamed of themselves.
I agree, Paul, and I think the claim that the local people can take care of the Park just fine on their own is demonstrably false. Us people who live here have to recognize the fact that half the Park is owned by the state in the name of all twenty million New York residents.
That said, I do think that the process seems to be working, and I’m optimistic that the project will go forward and benefit the village and the region. And despite being a pinko tree-hugging greenie, I really do hope that the environmental organizations don’t resort to lawsuits to grind the developers down.
no excuse for the booing, and during the afternoon session there was no booing when the enviro leader (dave gibson?) was talking. I wasn’t at the evening one but i heard about the booing and agree there is no place for that. However i think it does show (whether right or wrong) how passionate we feel about the project. as a TL tax payer, i do feel as though the enviros have not worked with the locals to understand our feelings. They have taken a harsh stance even in the face of a draft permit being issued. Nothing is good enough for them, and i think that was evidenced yesterday.
@walker- you are correct the state owns HALF THE PARK. we can never do anything about that. The other half is private and i think we (the residents, the town admins) should be able to have a say in what gets developed and where on PRIVATE LAND. I don’t think we would live here if we didn’t have a strong affection for the park and its beauty, and the understanding of its rich biodiversity. we are talking about private investment on private land. Time to end the experiment and let local communities thrive and fail on their own decisions, not govt bureaucrats
Dontdefund, in 1972, the Horizon Corporation of Tucson, Arizona purchased 24,000 acres within the park and announced plans to build 10,000 new homes, along with golf courses, and ski areas. Do you really think that, if the APA hadn’t just come into existence, that the development would have been stopped? Or do you figure the development would have been a good thing?
dontdefundnpr says:
“Time to end the experiment and let local communities thrive and fail on their own decisions, not govt bureaucrats”
Stop sounding so reasonable; the state would never go along with that.
On what grounds could they possibly sue?
The APA Act allows for way more development than is outlined in this project on that land.
Perhaps the developer could sue if they are denied a permit but I don’t know the legal grounds for a suit against the APA if they grant a permit.
The bottom line is that development has environmental impacts. This process is designed to minimize, not eliminate, those impacts. It is unrealistic to think that the APA is there to stop development, they are there to regulate it according to their rules, plain and simple. If you do not like the rules that is something to be taken up with the NYS legislature that adopted them. That is where the “owners” of the park need to voice their concerns, not in a Tupper Lake cafeteria. These environmental groups might be better spending their members money on lobbying rather than experts for this hearing. This whole process is damaging what it is they hope to accomplish.