Wednesday, May 13, 2020

APA to hear cases, accept public comments this month

After a quiet April, the Adirondack Park Agency has a number of projects open for public comment this month, from new cell towers to a proposal to weaken restrictions on a swath of land.

The public hearings and comment periods for these projects are separate from the agency’s monthly meeting, which is slated for 1 p.m. on Thursday, May 14. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the meeting will be held remotely. The public may call in at 518-549-0500 and Access Code 613 297 758, or may join through Webex online.

Gwendolyn Craig gives a rundown of the projects under review this month in this Adirondack Explorer article: https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/apa-projects.

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Community news stories come from press releases and other notices from organizations, businesses, state agencies and other groups. Submit your contributions to Almanack Editor Melissa Hart at editor@adirondackalmanack.com.


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8 Responses

  1. Charlie S says:

    “Lake Luzerne officials are hoping the APA will reclassify 105 acres from rural use to moderate intensity use, a downgrade in land protections……. “would be an economic benefit,” to the town.”

    Economy first as always. Take down the woods or fields and replace them with cement. We like cement!

    • Bill Ott says:

      Charlie S,

      You have inspired me to do a little research. I just wondered what the difference between “moderate intensity” and “rural use” would be. I figured “rural use” would be corn and cows with the occasional ATV running rampant. I figured “moderate intensity” would include homes and perhaps a school with the standard ATV’s running rampant. So I clicked on the included link and waded through tons of interesting stuff (including the names of all the landowners in the subject area, and color coded land use maps) until I got to the gold mine.

      Toward the bottom of the document I got to this heading: COMPATIBLE USE LIST FROM SECTION 805 OF THE ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY ACT. Now get this! All the 14 primary listings between “moderate” and “rural” are identical. Then there are the secondary use areas. “Moderate intensity” includes 23 uses while “Rural use” includes 24 items, the extra one being (you guessed it) JUNKYARDS?!?! Tell me this seems right, or do the people who publish this stuff think nobody is ever going to read it.

      If you got this far, you got a gold star.

      Bill Ott
      Lakewood, Ohio

      • Balian the Cat says:

        Bill,

        Crazy as this sounds, I wonder if that provision is in there to incorporate the proud rural tradition of “storing’ various junk vehicles in ones yard?

      • Charlie S says:

        Terminology! I don’t wish to know every thing! Why go there when you intuitively know shenanigans are taking shape. Human nature is what it is. The earth is a junkyard Bill as is evident by just looking around. We’re paying the price for this, which we don’t seem to be perceptive of just yet, or outright just don’t care. I got to thinking about the effects this pandemic has brought on, namely the halting of business as usual, and i often think about the few remaining wooded lots or fields that are bulldozed so yet another tax haven can be created….. and now all of a sudden everything has stopped and i thought, ‘what happens when there’s no more tax havens being created?’ The earth benefits.

        My dad, and I, both agreed over the years that a virus is what is going to bring this society down, but never would I have guessed it would come so soon, not that this coronavirus is ‘it.’ But! At the very least this bug should be a wake-up call of what could come if we keep going on the way we have been with our economic way of thinking. We don’t think too far ahead Bill! I am convinced that we need more green space not less. We need more trees to filter out pollutants, and I believe this is so for viruses also, that if we had more green space, more woods, these could be used as deterrent’s, filtering systems to keep the bugs, viruses at bay…..

        I can go on here but am probably straying from the theme of this narrative, but these are the things that come over me regards. All is relative. It all goes back to economy. Some landowners will never be happy with the beauty that surrounds them, will never realize the charms of the forests and green fields, and so……this is where cement comes in. It’s a shame. We need laws to protect what remains, not laws that protect deluded landowners who wish to do as they wish because money is God to them.

        • Bill Ott says:

          Mr. S,

          You have given me an opening.
          There is a theory that all advanced civilizations are self terminating, either by war, disease, or a third reason that has left me. That would explain the absence of extraterrestrial contact.

          We came close to the nuclear option during the Cuban missile crisis. As far as the disease option goes, each living thing on this planet, not just us 7.1B humans, are living laboratories from whence that final deadly and unstoppable germ may come forth. That is hopefully just a figment of my imagination. I expect to have this theory proven wrong with some very good arguments.

          • Charlie S says:

            “I expect to have this theory proven wrong with some very good arguments.”

            I’m an optimist myself Bill, but also I know some of the history of the human race….it’s not purty! I’m still learning our history, which leads me to having doubts. I hope we’re both wrong for the sake of our progeny. I mean after all, that’s what it should be about right…future generations?

  2. Bill Ott says:

    Mr. Cat,

    I have an inside line on a rumor. I understand that the above mentioned Gwendolyn Craig has the car she learned to drive in, and wrecked, sitting buried up to it axles in her front yard and does not want to be bothered to move it. You know how rumors are – don’t know if they are true or where they started.

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