APA REVIEW

The town did not order an environmental impact review because the state Adirondack Park Agency’s own review satisfies that requirement, said Tupper Lake Town Attorney David Johnson.

The state’s legal brief is a surprising turn of events, he said.

“I’m surprised that they’d be looking for jurisdiction over a matter that the APA already has jurisdiction over,” Johnson said.

“There’s no question about that. They (APA) make an environmental review of the project.”

Franklin County Judge David Demarest made the same point when he dismissed the case last year.

But state lawyers argue that the lower court’s decision creates a bad precedent, inviting other Adirondack towns and villages to improperly offload legal responsibilities of review onto the APA.

PLAINTIFFS ‘DELIGHTED’

David Gibson of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, a plaintiff in the suit, said his group had asked DEC to weigh in.

“We were simply delighted that the department and the state found our papers, and the merits of our appeal, worthy of their involvement.”

There has been little visible progress on the Adirondack Club and Resort since the APA Board of Commissioners voted last year to send the project to a formal round of adjudication.

Public hearings were put on hold after the developer entered closed-door mediation with neighbors and the project’s opponents.

Both sides have informally reported progress, but a strict confidentiality agreement has bound all parties from discussing the substance of the negotiations.