by
Brian Mann on May 31st, 2011
At a gathering earlier this month in Lake Placid, DEC commissioner Joe Martens confirmed that the state plans to buy roughly 65,000 acres of the former Finch timber land for inclusion in the forest preserve.
This morning, the Albany Times-Union‘s Brian Nearing looks at the dispute between some local leaders and the state over whether that deal should go forward.
The article is interesting is a good solid backgrounder, offering a comprehensive introduction to the issues surrounding the possible sale.
But this is also the narrative that a lot of the decision-makers in Albany will read and could influence whether the legislature or Governor Andrew Cuomo begin to rethink the project.
Read the full article here.
Tags: economy
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Hi John–
Sorry about that. Comments that contain two or more outside web links are caught by the spam filtering and sent to the moderation queue. Since we are getting more comments that are well-documented with outside links, I will change the spam filter threshold to four outside links.
Dale Hobson, NCPR
John – easements are great and should be pursued whenever possible – but this is a big state and there are many many tax-paying people like Dennis above who want a really big and wild place to go to, and are willing to pay the taxes to buy it.
There is a huge double standard at work here. When it comes time to close a road or make some kind of Wilderness designation the ASLPM is an unshakable law that cannot be circumvented and some environmental groups may have to take you to court if you try. But if you want to put productive forest land into the Forest Preserve despite the fact that the ASLMP clearly stipulates that the land should be placed under an easement then the law is just a guide not a rule.
John, please name the “He” who would like to purchase 65,000 acres.
According to the State Constitution, the state cannot not sell the land it owns in the Adirondacks so your “if” is as meaningless as you or me saying “if I were a billionaire.”
PS: I wonder why the Review Board doesn’t complain about those don’t pay any taxes freeloaders at Word of Life.
Pete, I think he is talking about the land that TNC is now holding. The state hasn’t even agreed on a purchase price yet. The “he” could be me. Pete since you are a billionaire could you lend me 30 million?
I’ll say it again, the State does NOT have the money, what makes them think that they can buy somehting that they can’t afford and then cut education et al. a 2% tax cap, get real! They can’t keep their own house in order and the Governor is proposing a cap without Mandate relief! Mandate relief should be the first priority, then we wouldn’t need the tax cap.
Tim, the state always has money. Spending and not spending are choices. If the state really didn’t have any money, it would have to fire all of our elected officials, including the governor.
Hey, there’s an idea. Fire them all and not pay them any retirement or forever health insurance.
I do agree mandate relief should come before any tax cap. In fact, I am in favor of eliminating all, each and everyone, of the unfunded mandates. Mandates are like me telling you or you telling me that I must buy a new car even if I can’t afford one.
John, I just spent way too long looking for your “Working forests are worth $477.00 per acre per year to New York’s GDP” on DEC’s website. Could you provide a link? As long as you keep the number of links under four, you should be OK.
Pete, no one is saying that TNC shouldn’t sell the property to whoever they choose, but rather that the New York taxpayers shouldn’t buy it, especially when easements could achieve the many of the same ends much less expensively. If TNC wanted to, they could put a “Forever Wild” easement on it that would offer even more protection than could be provided if it were Forest Preserve Wilderness. The only benefits I see are for the insatiable recreational activists and the ideologues who can’t stand to see land in the Adirondacks in private hands.
Who in their right mind would adhere to a non-binding agreement, entered into in 2007, to buy real estate? Remember those times, when houses were piggybanks and the state coffers were overflowing with Wall Street money? The fact that it was non-binding suggests that the state wanted to be able to back out of it in case there was a material change. Well guess what, there was.
Solidago I agree. This “agreement” did not even include an offer price. That is no way for the state to be acting in our best interest. It was like the state was so desperate that they just agreed to whatever without even knowing the consequences. I see this more as an option agreement than anything else. I think that if we as a state don’t exercise our option the land will be protected some other way. The public will have to be satisfied with the other 3 million acres.
The Review Board discussed this issue at length with Brian Nearing. Nearing then chose to NOT publish LGRB comments regarding the following:
Sportsmen’s opposition to more state land acquisition and the classification of the acquired land as Wilderness barring practical access.
The planned destruction of hundreds of hunting and fishing cabins on the former Finch lands.
The waste of taxpayer money by over-payments for state land purchases.
The waste of taxpayer money by purchasing development rights and throwing them away.
The lack of legally binding contracts obligating the state to purchase from TNC.
The need for a constitutional amendment to allow purchases of Forest Preserve land for municipal needs.
The fact that the planned purchases are contrary to the State Land Master Plan (SLUMP) which provides that the state should not usually purchase highly productive forest lands in fee, because of the importance of the forest products industry to the economies of affected communities.
Paul said: “A private business on Lower Saranac lake:
4.85 acres of land tax value $1,114,300 or $229,752 per acre
State owned land on the same part of Lower Saranac lake:
7420 acres of land tax value $5,971,400 or $804 per acre
That seems considerably lower to me??”
Paul, don’t be ridiculous your silly example is comparing apples to oranges. Take a look at the taxes on large tracts of forest land and the tax-breaks that are available to private owners who lumber the property.
myown, if you prefer look at all the land private vs. public. According to you the state pays higher taxes than the private owners do. But I will give you an example of a large private tract vs. a large public tract as well. Here I was comparing land on the same lake. A small parcel of that state land if developed by a business would be a big revenue generator for the town. That is pretty clear. It will never happen on that land.
Peter Hahn says:
June 1, 2011 at 9:46 am
John – easements are great and should be pursued whenever possible – but this is a big state and there are many many tax-paying people like Dennis above who want a really big and wild place to go to, and are willing to pay the taxes to buy it.”
That’s great Peter, lets find a way for HIM to pay MY portion of the taxes then because there are “many many tax-paying people” like me who don’t want to pay for it, don’t want to pay the taxes on it and believe there is more than enough already wild land for people to go to.
“Take a look at the taxes on large tracts of forest land and the tax-breaks that are available to private owners who lumber the property.”
Okay, I did. Another example for you:
1421 acres of private forest land in the town of Santa Clara:
taxable value = $718,526 or $505 per acre WITH a 480 tax break.
6173 acres of Forest Preserve land in the same area:
taxable value = $2,300,316 or $372 per acre
Even under a 480 tax break the private forest land is considerably better for the tax base than the Forest Preserve land.
The waterfront parcels are off the charts. I don’t see any examples of what you describe as the state paying higher taxes than you see on a private parcel. myown, why don’t you give us a few examples?
“easements are great and should be pursued whenever possible”
Peter, why not here? I think rather than the state buying the easement, the TNC or some other groups that wants the land protected should buy the easement. Why not use some of their money for land protection instead of land “flipping”?
myown, one more thing. The example I gave above may be “apples to oranges” but I think that town planners have to look at comparisons like that. Once the land is added to the Forest Preserve it will always stay an “apple” or an “orange”. It will never become a thriving business like the one I described on Lower Saranac that has generated tax revenue well beyond property tax revenue as well as creating many good jobs for several generations now.
Paul, I for one am perfectly happy to declare that I don’t want to see Follansbee Pond turned into a thriving business. Ever. By anyone. I don’t care how much tax revenue it would create.
Let the state tax Wall Street’s bloated profits, and use the money to revenue share with Adk towns.
Walker, I don’t either but the towns need to determine how they will survive in the coming decades.
Here are those links:
Working forests are worth $477.00 per acre per year to New York’s GDP according to DEC’s website. When 65,000 acres of productive forestland are acquired for Forest Preserve, it stands to reason that the negative economic impact is $29 million per year. This takes into consideration a “value added multiplier effect”.
See page 2 of this PDF:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/lands_forests_pdf/economic.pdf
The SLMP specifically states that productive forestland should not be acquired, but rather easement protection is a better solution. See page 7 of this PDF (large file) :
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/lands_forests_pdf/adk.pdf
Thanks, John.
For starters, that $477 per acre figure combines “Forest-based manufacturing value of shipments” with the “Forest-related recreation and tourism” and “Christmas trees/maple products” so it’s not exactly a straightforward figure for what happens to New York’s GDP when you take an acre of forest out of production. For instance, if a “Forest-based manufacturer” switches from using NY timber to wood from somewhere else, presumably the manufacturer still contributes to the GDP. And the Forest-based manufacturing part of that figure was only $374, not $477.
Second, that’s a 2007 figure. The steep decline in the housing market has, from what I can see, depressed timber prices, though I couldn’t find anything like overall figures, so I have no idea how much they’ve declined.
All told, I think it’s a fair guess that the cost to New York’s GDP of taking 65,000 acres out of production is probably considerably less than $29 million.
Still, it’s clear there may well be some loss on the manufacturing side. But you would also presumably gain something on the “Forest-related recreation and tourism” side when you stop harvesting timber.
As for the easements, what I’m seeing on p. 7 is this:
“4. Highest priority should be given
to acquiring fee title to, fee title subject to a
term of life tenancy, or conservation
easements providing public use or value or
rights of first refusal over, (i) key parcels of
private land, the use or development of
which could adversely affect the integrity of
vital tracts of state land, particularly
wilderness, primitive and canoe areas and
(ii) key parcels which would permit the
upgrading of primitive areas to wilderness
areas.”
That seems to me to fall significantly short of saying that easements are a better solution; rather, it’s saying that easements can be useful in some cases.
Walker, the 2007 figures take into consideration neither the biomass market (wood pellets and cellulosic ethanol), not the carbon markets, both of which are growing rapidly. So no matter that the housing market has declined, new markets are emerging that appear to be even more valuable (one ton of wood pellets sells for $200.00). Regardless, I think we both agree that New York State recognizes productive forests as a valuable component to the state’s GDP.
Regarding paragraph 4 above, it reinforces the usefulness of easement purchases over fee purchases. Thanks for pointing it out. Frankly, development on the 65,000 acres is unrealistic, but is the state wants to buy development rights to help facilitate a private / public interest, then so be it. A pure public taking is probably illegal at the most, a violation to long-established public policy at the least, and just plain foolish no matter how you look at it.
Additionally, there has never been an imminent invasive species threat like there is now, and prohibition of forest management is ludicrous. I think I’ll send a FOIA request to DEC to see what their invasive species management plans are…
Good point about the wood pellets. I still think the effect of the state buying it would be a whole lot less than $29 million. But its pretty clear that getting a good estimate of the impact would be difficult at best.
You sure read paragraph 4 differently than I do! If I were to translate it into plain English, it would read something like
“Highest priority should be given to buying land, or easements on land, which, if it were developed, would break up wilderness areas, and land which would permit primitive areas to be upgraded to wilderness areas.”
I don’t see how that “reinforces the usefulness of easement purchases over fee purchases.”
Walker, it refers to land that is threatened by development, and by which would break up wilderness areas. Neither could happen on the 65,000 acre Finch tract. It also refers to easement purchases on such land.