When Change Comes

Sometimes when change comes to a rural area it reflects a natural process of time, along with shifting patterns of settlement, land use, and commerce. Other times what drives change is something more akin to, say, the building of a transcontinental railroad. And sometimes as with the coming changes to our part of the world, elements of both seem to be in play.
Soon after this paper goes to press, DEC will release its blueprint for future analysis of the big development engine for our region being driven by the Governor. We have no idea what that blueprint will say, but it will either compel the state to analyze the project’s impacts well and properly or it won’t. Back in December, The Phoenicia Times and The Olive Press were the only newspapers to speak highly of DEC’s Draft Scoping document and applaud the apparent integrity of the process. We hope the final Scoping document merits similar approval from all quarters.
We don’t envy DEC this job, given the odd structural conundrum of their serving both as decision-making regulator and simultaneously as the project’s applicant. Now that the resort and the ski area are formally married, it must be a huge relief for both partners to stop pretending they weren’t engaged. And although the agency isn’t technically a party to last year’s “Agreement in Principal,” the rest of state government is clearly bound by it. So while everything in that agreement is basically footnoted subject to compliance with SEQRA, it’s DEC who’ll decide what compliance means. We trust they intend to do so well and honestly though as we’ve all seen, the whole regulatory process turns out to be subject to suspension any time the state’s executive branch doesn’t like it.
Belleayre of course, is just one of a number of regional issues that DEC’s grappling with, from problems with the Tappan Zee Bridge to Stewart airport’s expansion to major residential development pressure in Dutchess and Sullivan counties. But the Catskills are clearly back on the state’s map of its future now, someplace we haven’t been for years and something that could be of great value and soon. What’s placed us there is the geography of the resort proposal with respect to the Watershed, the City, and the Catskill Park. And like those factors, the issues and their implications aren’t small. Both supporters and opponents of the current project agree it’s not simply a hotel and ski area at issue but the long-term development future of the whole central Catskills.
Where is it all headed? Interpretations differ, though mostly by degree. But four years ago at the old Emerson Inn, developer Dean Gitter shared with a friendly audience the story of how he’d gotten Ted Wright, a high-profile hotel industry guy, to come work for him. “He bought my spiel,” said Gitter, “that in five years this would be Greenwich, Connecticut.”
The time-frame may have been optimistic but it certainly looks like that scenario is on track and well greased with public bacon. State funds committed to Belleayre’s makeover are reportedly up to $75 million, with another $14 million earmarked to buy the Highmount ski area and Big Indian Plateau. A million dollars has materialized toward the Interpretive Center we’ve all long sought for Mt.Tremper, plus half a million more for “smartgrowth” projects, all right here in our little towns. Add those to the $400 million from the unnamed “major international resort operator” who’d actually build the project’s private components and it all adds up to serious money, like in Greenwich. And that’s not including funds for a new high-volume Catskill Parkway to upgrade high-fatality Route 28 for the new traffic loads it’ll need to bear.
Some people take the view these commitments of recent months are all coincidental, the culmination of multiple unrelated processes at work. Others see them as elements of a new regional Master Plan, yet to be shared with those of us who live here. Somewhere between the two we think, reality lies. We’re certainly hopeful about major investment in our region: In our infrastructure, in the ski center, and in an appropriately scaled private real estate and hotel project. And although that project’s review process goes on, our concern is that the State has already issued its key findings through the AIP, saying essentially this: We don’t need no studies or SEQRA process to figure this out. It’s not important whether the scale is acceptable to the host communities, or whether the changes it’ll bring are positive or negative for them. It doesn’t matter whether the jobs we create are living-wage jobs, or whether changes in local taxes and property values will force lower-income residents to go live somewhere else. Our job is to create business and development opportunities in New York State and that’s what we’re doing.
In some ways, what’s happening with this resort review is similar to what’s going on in the Onteora school district. There, the board appears to have decided on major structural changes which would force the closing of another elementary school, without performing the basic due diligence to be able to tell us whether or not such a move will actually save money or if it does, how much and whether it’s worth it or not. It takes solid, objective information and analysis to make these kinds of decisions, and it takes truthfulness and transparency of process. These things apply equally whether it’s to sort out what’s right for a school district‘s future or for a thousand square miles of the Rt. 28 corridor. That’s what we expect from our school board, that’s what we expect from DEC, and that’s what we expect from our Governor.
BP