The last couple of years, critics of the Adirondack Park Agency have been increasingly vocal about what they see as the shortcomings of the state bureaucracy that manages the Park.<\/p>\n
Put simply, many of their arguments — in particular, claims that the Park and its zoning rules are responsible for destroying the local economy — are unconvincing.<\/p>\n
Yes, the APA’s zoning rules and restrictions on development on private land pose challenges to private developers and to local government leaders who want to boost their communities’ fortunes.<\/p>\n
But the Park is also clearly an invaluable economic asset.<\/p>\n
The state pays more than $70 million dollars in state property taxes to communities every year, demanding very few services in return.<\/p>\n
What’s more, billions of dollars in second-home investment has been spurred over the last decade by the preservation of the region’s wild character and scenery.<\/p>\n
Still, critics of the APA are responding to a very real set of facts on the ground:<\/p>\n
Whatever the Park’s virtues, many villages and hamlets are losing ground rapidly, as populations age and dwindle, and as retail businesses close.<\/p>\n
Year-by-year, we see schools closing, churches shutting their doors, and retail businesses going dark.<\/p>\n
(There are some notable exceptions.\u00a0 Saranac Lake, North Creek, Lake George, and Bolton Landing, Old Forge have all experienced something of a mini-renaissance of late, though in every case prosperity still feels fragile.)<\/p>\n
What’s more, cash-strapped state officials are acknowledging that they simply don’t have the resources to keep managing the Park under the old model.<\/p>\n
They’ve threatened to close many of the campgrounds, road systems, and historic sites that attract visitors and tourist dollars.<\/p>\n
Most participants in the Park’s never-ending debates and feuds agree on one thing:\u00a0 It is unacceptable for our human communities to fail.<\/p>\n
Places like Tupper Lake, Jay and Blue Mountain Lake are crucial pieces of the “grand experiment” of the Adirondacks.<\/p>\n
They are, in theory, living proof that people and wilderness can co-exist gracefully, with open space preserved on the one side and vibrant towns sustained on the other.<\/p>\n
But at present, the human half of this experiment is slowly failing. We run the very real risk of depopulating permanently whole sections of the Adirondacks.<\/p>\n
Hamilton County, which makes up 1800 square miles of the Park, has probably slipped below 5,000 permanent, year-round residents.\u00a0\u00a0 That is very fragile indeed.<\/p>\n
To their credit, state officials have begun playing a larger role in thinking about these issues, but it’s time for the APA to embrace a much larger, more complex mission.<\/p>\n
The goal going forward shouldn’t just be preservation of the region’s “forever wild,” character, but also preserving its “forever human” ingredients as well.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the timing for this transition is perfect.\u00a0 The state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars protecting open space over the last decade.<\/p>\n
This has permanently removed the major environmental threat — fragmentation of the Adirondack’s privately-owned back country — which led to the creation of the APA.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands of acres that were once vulnerable to subdivision and development are now largely protected by the state’s land and easement purchases.<\/p>\n
With the completion of the Finch Pruyn and Follensby deals, the natural side of the equation will be in miraculously great shape.<\/p>\n
So it’s only appropriate that the APA should begin turning its regulatory and planning energies to the other side of the equation.<\/p>\n
They should begin looking for creative ways to help restore and revitalize places such as Indian Lake (which recently lost its grocery store) and Port Henry (which just saw its Aubuchon’s close).<\/p>\n
How can this be done?<\/p>\n
Written into the APA’s regulatory framework are very specific guidelines for protecting the open space character of the Park.<\/p>\n
Projects are often required to be “substantially invisible,” or must prove that they have “no undue adverse impact” on ecosystems.<\/p>\n
Planners use well-established concepts such as “limits of acceptable change” to determine whether new human activities will erode the quality of wildness that we cherish.<\/p>\n
The Agency needs to craft similar language aimed at supporting sustainable communities.<\/p>\n
The goal shouldn’t just be to study or acknowledge the importance of economic, historic and social factors, but to make sure that government actions and decisions enhance those things.<\/p>\n
Here’s how Adirondack Park 3.0 might work:<\/p>\n
First, working with local communities and other appropriate state agencies, the APA should conduct inventories of partnering towns, something similar to the recent APRAP study funded by local governments.<\/p>\n
We need to know where we’re at, just how fragile individual villages and counties are.<\/p>\n
Then we should should establish a clear, factual and flexible vision for what success in each community would look like.<\/p>\n
What should the ideal population be?\u00a0 What should the school enrollment look like?\u00a0 Is affordable housing available? Is there a healthy mix of public- and private-sector employment?<\/p>\n
Does the community have a particular asset — historical, recreational, industrial, etc. — that could help hit those targets?<\/p>\n
Are there particular hurdles, such as outdated governmental jurisdictions or transportation problems, that could be addressed?<\/p>\n
Then, going forward, the state should specifically reference these goals and standards when making management decisions for state land and zoning decisions for private land.<\/p>\n
We would create clear benchmarks for success and failure.<\/p>\n
We need to measure progress in our human communities that are as clearly delineated as the benchmarks that now track environmental success or failure.<\/p>\n
The APA could also provide staff who are qualified to help communities that lack the resources to do realistic planning and revitalization work.<\/p>\n
Finally, the state could help to develop a regional investment pool (perhaps using a small chunk of the property tax payments sent each year from Albany) providing loans and other capital to appropriate private businesses interested in investing inside the Blue Line.<\/p>\n
Obviously, this would take a new level of partnership between the APA, other state agencies, local leaders, environmental groups and businesses.<\/p>\n
And we would have to tread carefully, to insure that restoring communities is done in a way that enhances the larger vision of the Park and its beauty.<\/p>\n
It would require legislative changes and a lot more trust.\u00a0 But none of this thinking is any more ambitious than the thinking that went into Adirondack Park 2.0.<\/p>\n
What’s clear is that the ideals that shaped the current model (lofty as they were) simply aren’t producing the desired result, which is a permanent, vibrant and sustainable mix of the wild and the human.<\/p>\n
If we let the Park’s towns fail, the great experiment of the Park will be a failure as well.\u00a0\u00a0 In my book, that would exceed the limits of acceptable change.<\/p>\n
Your thoughts are welcome below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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