LAKE PLACID -- The judge has set a date to convene a conference on mediation for resort developers in Tupper Lake.

Administrative Law Judge Daniel P. O'Connell announced an Oct. 24 meeting to be held at the Goff-Nelson Library on Lake Street, beginning at 10 a.m.

Mediation is top on the list of four topics to be discussed that day.

MEDIATION SOUGHT

Developers of the proposed Adirondack Club & Resort project last month requested a mediation step, a move some say may confuse the adjudication process put into motion last spring by the Adirondack Park Agency.

After three years of engineering on a resort project that proposes to build more than 600 units of housing and resort amenities around a reclaimed Big Tupper Ski Area, APA ordered 10 issues to adjudicatory hearing.

The issues range from compliance with Adirondack Park land-use law on Resource Management lands to impact on local resources.

Developers have since removed one wastewater-treatment plant and an East Ridge complex from the plan.

They have also suggested relocating a proposed Orvis brand shooting-clays course.

But APA and the Department of Environmental Conservation have not received updated applications reflecting those changes, a matter also up for discussion on Oct. 24.

DIVIDED OPINIONS

Party status will be reviewed, along with issues for adjudication, "which may be discussed during mediation," O'Connell said in a memorandum.

The Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce has said it believes mediation would be helpful.

But the Adirondack Park Agency, while hopeful about the process, has questioned the timing of a mediation step, saying that, even afterward, it may still require adjudication.

If "the record is incomplete on certain issues, it may require completion of the adjudicatory hearing it ordered in the first instance," agency officials wrote.