Ray Brook, NY – The Adirondack Park Agency Board, at its March 16, 2023 meeting, authorized a 30-day public commentperiod to solicit input to help inform the Board’s interpretation of the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan’s Wild Forest Basic Guideline No. 4, including a new No Material Increase Alternative #4.
The Agency will accept public comment through close of business on April 17, 2023. All public comments will be shared with the Department of Environmental Conservation, who the Agency works in consultation with on Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan implementation.
I sifted through the new Office of Renewable Energy Siting’s regulations and talked to some state and nonprofit sources about large-scale solar projects and the permitting process. Some of you have had questions about solar capacity factors and decommissioning, among other things, in my time covering these solar facility permits. We try to answer some of them for you here.
The Adirondack Park Agency lost two separate court decisions —one involving a marina permit on Lower Saranac Lake and another involving an herbicide permit on Lake George. The Court of Appeals case involving a private marina was the first to come out, and in an unanimous opinion judges criticized how the APA has been applying its wetlands regulations. We learned Judge Robert Muller, of the state Supreme Court in Warren County, issued a decision on a Lake George herbicide permit suit that scolded APA for being “one-sided” in its application review and said the agency should have held an adjudicatory hearing. » Continue Reading.
APA Honors Women’s History Month with “Remarkable Women of the Adirondacks” Historical Presentation and Fine Arts Exhibit
Ray Brook, NY – The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) will hold its monthly meeting on Thursday, March16, 2023. The meeting will be held at the Agency’s headquarters in Ray Brook, NY. The public is welcome to attend in person or remotely.
Public comment will be available to members of the public who attend the Agency meeting in person as well as those who participate remotely. If you would like the opportunity to make a public comment remotely, please email your name and the phone number used to call into the Board Meeting to AgencyMeeting.PublicComment@apa.ny.gov.
Last April, Adirondack organizations wrote to the Adirondack Park Agency asking APA to rediscover their discretionary power to hold adjudicatory public hearings on particularly complex, controversial Adirondack land use projects. No response to our joint letter has been forthcoming from the APA. However, a rather resounding response has just come from a member of our state’s judicial branch.
Only one formal APA adjudicatory public hearing has been held in recent memory, and that was in 2011 and concerned the Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake. Ever since, APA staff have refused to recommend that the board take any land use and development to public hearing. And no APA board has produced the required six votes to do so.
RAY BROOK, NY – The Adirondack Park Agency is accepting public comment on projects currently under review. The public is encouraged to go to the Agency’s website found at www.apa.ny.gov and click the Public Comment and Hearing Opportunities link in the News & Activities information box.
The link will direct the public to the Requests for Public Comment page where more information is located. In addition, the public will find an option to electronically submit a comment for the posted projects.
Several Adirondack area organizations recently welcomed an allotment of new staff, including Champlain Area Trails (CATS), the Adirondack Park Agency (APA), The Hyde Collection, Silver Bay YMCA, and the Trudeau Institute.
TrudeauInstitute President Atsuo Kuki Leaves Position, Chief Administrative Officer William Chapin named interim director
Saranac Lake—Atsuo Kuki has stepped away from his role as president and director of TrudeauInstitute, after serving in the role for six years.
Chief Administrative Officer William Chapin, a 9-year Trudeau veteran, has been appointed the Institute‘s interim director.
The Adirondack Diversity Initiative has a new director starting next month, Tiffany Rea-Fisher. I spoke with her over the phone last week about her role as an area choreographer and her upcoming role at ADI. Rea-Fisher will take the helm after former Director Nicole Hylton-Patterson left in the fall.
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation (OPRHP), the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) today announced two virtual public meetings to collect public input on a unit management plan (UMP) for the John Brown Farm State Historic Site. The UMP will address the future management of the State Historic Site which encompasses 213 acres in the Town of North Elba, Essex County.
The first of two meetings will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 7 p.m. The second will take place on Thursday, Feb. 9, at 10 a.m. OPRHP, DEC, and APA encourage interested parties to participate in one of the scheduled information meetings. During the meeting, OPRHP, DEC, and APA staff will provide information about the State Historic Site facilities and the UMP planning process. The agencies will also seek public input on the future management of these public lands.
RAY BROOK, NY – The Adirondack Park Agency is accepting public comment on projects currently under review. The public is encouraged to go to the Agency’s website found at www.apa.ny.gov and click the Public Comment and Hearing Opportunities link in the News & Activities information box.
The link will direct the public to the Request for Public Comment page where more information is located. In addition, the public will find an option to electronically submit a comment for the posted projects.
The Adirondack Park Agency is accepting public comment on projects currently under review. The public is encouraged to go to the Agency’s website found at www.apa.ny.gov and click the Public Comment and Hearing Opportunities link in the News & Activities information box.
The link will direct the public to the Requests for Public Comment page where more information is located. In addition, the public will find an option to electronically submit a comment for the posted projects.
Presently, the Agency is accepting comments on the following proposed projects:
John Ernst has been chair of the Adirondack Park Agency for over a year now. I sat down with him and his wife Margot over the summer to see how his new role was going. We also talked about his deep family connection to the Adirondacks, which is how I learned that Ernst’s grandfather, a magician and the attorney for escape artist Harry Houdini, started the multi-generation treks to Elk Lake from New York City.
The Adirondack Park Agency has received criticism for what some say is its lack of transparency regarding the release of old memos about questions staff have posed to commissioners that would interpret a cap on roads in wild forest areas. Commissioners made no determinations at the APA meeting last week, but staff hinted they could be looking for decisions, soon.
Here’s a reminder, quoted from APA Deputy Director of Planning Megan Phillips’s presentation, on the questions:
The Adirondack Park Agency is accepting public comment on projects currently under review. The public is encouraged to go to the Agency’s website found at www.apa.ny.gov and click the Public Comment and Hearing Opportunities link found in the News & Activities information box.
The link will direct the public to the Requests for Public Comment page where more information is located. In addition, the public will find an option to electronically submit a comment for the posted projects.
Presently, the Agency is accepting comments on the following proposed projects:
– New commercial sand and gravel mine in the Town of Elizabethtown, Essex County
– Shoreline variance request for the construction of a single-family dwelling in the Town of Ticonderoga, Essex County
– Three-lot subdivision in the Town of Tupper Lake, Franklin County
– Construction of a new 85-foot-tall telecommunications tower in the Town of Indian Lake, Hamilton County
– Demolition of existing mining equipment and structures at the former Republic Steel Mineville #7 complex in the Town of Moriah, Essex County
– Reconstruction of an existing 46kV electric transmission line in the Towns of Long Lake, Arietta and Long Lake, Hamilton County
– Replacement and expansion of an existing on-site wastewater treatment system within 100 feet of wetlands in the Town of Webb, Herkimer County
– Installation of temporary telecommunication infrastructure in the Town of North Hudson, Essex County
– Installation of new utility pole in the Town of Ticonderoga, Essex County
– Four-lot subdivision in the Town of Parishville, St. Lawrence County
– Replacement and realignment of NYS Route 28 bridge crossing south inlet of Raquette in the Town of Arietta, Hamilton County
The mission of the Adirondack Park Agency is to protect the public and private resources of the Adirondack Park through the exercise of the powers and duties of the Agency as provided by law.
Photo at top: Cell towers on Prospect Mountain. Almanack file photo
The Adirondack Park Agency will not be meeting this week, “due to no agenda items that require board action,” according to its website. I do have some update to share with you about how the APA is running its public comments and hearings page.
Upon glancing at the APA’s website this morning, I do see that the agency will be holding a virtual training for commissioners on shoreline setbacks, which the public is invited to watch on WebEx. Got to the APA’s homepage for more info: https://apa.ny.gov/.
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Big solar, plus APA court decisions
I sifted through the new Office of Renewable Energy Siting’s regulations and talked to some state and nonprofit sources about large-scale solar projects and the permitting process. Some of you have had questions about solar capacity factors and decommissioning, among other things, in my time covering these solar facility permits. We try to answer some of them for you here.
The Adirondack Park Agency lost two separate court decisions —one involving a marina permit on Lower Saranac Lake and another involving an herbicide permit on Lake George. The Court of Appeals case involving a private marina was the first to come out, and in an unanimous opinion judges criticized how the APA has been applying its wetlands regulations. We learned Judge Robert Muller, of the state Supreme Court in Warren County, issued a decision on a Lake George herbicide permit suit that scolded APA for being “one-sided” in its application review and said the agency should have held an adjudicatory hearing. » Continue Reading.