A Turn We Can
Live With
Three weeks ago, the development landscape of the Route 28 corridor
shifted with a ruling from the judge overseeing the proposed
Belleayre Resort’s review. Sometime next year,12 major
problem areas connected with that project’s review will
be formally adjudicated in a process that essentially puts on
trial much of the data and conclusions reached by project’s
developer. Those conclusions in brief, were that the project
would have little significant impact on its host communities
including Olive, it’s access route. Although interpretations
of the traffic data differ, the project could add at times up
to one car about every 10 or 12 seconds into the Route 28 weekend
traffic flow.
Basically what’s happened now is that a DEC judge has
reviewed, with great detail and clarity, the largest SEQRA filing
in the state’s history for the biggest development ever
proposed for the Catskills: about 1,300 guest rooms, over 3,000
people on a nearly 2,000 acre project site surrounding the state-run
Belleayre Mountain ski area. He determined that developer Crossroads’
Ventures answers to the big questions about its project’s
impact are - there’s no other way to put this - inadequate
under state law to permit it to go forward. A few of the rulings
will be appealed, perhaps one or two subjects may not end up
being adjudicated. But the scope of what will be appears unprecedented
in state history. Rarely have things gone so badly for a major
project.
Here at the Olive Press we were less surprised by the breadth
of the decision than most people: As the only newspaper actually
present for the project’s Issues Conference last year,
we reported what happened back then but to recap… five
parties participated in the conference but two dominated: Crossroads
Ventures and the Catskill Preservation Coalition. Attorneys
for both, among the best in their field, led two teams of expert
witnesses presenting very complex data and explaining their
conclusions. Judge Wissler followed every detail offered by
every witness, asking questions consistently showing his clear
understanding of each issue and position raised. The teams of
experts however, were wildly, sometimes embarrassingly mismatched.
The only way to describe it was like a debate between the Students
team and the Professors team, and the Professors team were CPC’s
witnesses. Had Crossroads well-paid consultants done the quality
of work required, perhaps only a few of the major issues might
be going forward to adjudication next year. Instead, all of
the significant ones are.
We view with a healthy respect for established law the findings
of Judge Wissler in the matter, which are available in their
entirely at www.olivefreepress.us For all its complexity, the
ruling’s message was clear: In New York, the public interest
matters and if something’s going to impact us all, it
needs to be properly reviewed. It’s part of a process
that for more than a generation has worked reasonably well.
Projects green-lighted under SEQRA break ground all the time,
and without the difficulties this project has encountered. We’ve
all read no doubt, quotes from the developer vilifying the process’
other participants as “jihadists”, “hired
assassins,” “neo-socialist carpetbaggers”,
and “pointy headed nerds” to name a few. Hey, in
America one can say almost anything and some people do. Fortunately
it doesn’t effect the SEQRA process, whose point is to
weigh, measure, and determine things on balance and on their
merits. Although we’ve expressed concerns about it in
the past, we’ve always said we believed in the SEQRA process
and Judge Wissler’s rulings have affirmed that for us.
We think it’s what governments and regulatory processes
are for
So does all this mark the end of the road for the troubled Belleayre
Resort? No, not necessarily and maybe not at all. Remember it’s
the inspiring vista of return on investment that drives this
process and the ongoing costs don’t appear to be, for
Crossroads’ backers, really very significant ones. It’s
not as if the company was actually going to spend $300 or $400
million to build the place; that’s an issue for Marriot
or Hilton or whoever actually buys the permit package if it
ever becomes available. No, these “permitting costs”
ARE the developer’s capital investment, along with some
extra to cover land purchases, marketing costs like small inns
& restaurants, that kind of thing.
Meanwhile the sound and fury may intensify briefly before it
subsides. The developer’s supporters are upset about the
recent turn of events. The Coalition of Watershed Towns, once
and potentially still a major political force, appears to be
setting a course for self-destruction by trying to suppress
the critical adjudication of the resort’s impact on Community
Character, a dreadfully poor choice. Delaware County is rumored
to be threatening to withdraw from the MOA, which will survive
perfectly well without it. In the process they’d gain
nothing and lose their hefty share of the MOA’s funding
pie. Calls for the entire SEQRA process to be reexamined as
insufficiently developer-friendly will find little if any support
outside a small circle that’s unlikely to grow. But all
these prospects we think will quiet before long.
As to the actual project and its future, we think it can have
one. Counting ourselves among those who view a smaller version
of the project, built on its western side, as basically desirable,
we’re delighted the judge has now mandated actual consideration
of alternatives like that, and determined that Crossroads’
position since 1999, “it’s all or nothing”,
actually violates SEQRA’s requirements To us, what this
ruling means is that it’s still possible an approach can
be found that many, perhaps most of us around here can live
with. But like with cars, it’ll mean people really need
to start thinking smaller.
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