For Immediate Release
April 12, 2021
Contact: David Gibson, 518-469-4081
Adirondack Wild Lauds APA Recommendation to Maintain Rural Use
Ray Brook – The nonprofit advocate Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve is praising the Adirondack Park Agency’s staff for recommending denial of a proposed land use map amendment in Lake Luzerne, Warren County APA Staff Memo. The staff recommendation goes before the full agency at its monthly meeting on April 15.
The town asked the APA to change 105 acres of land zoned Rural Use to Moderate Intensity Use. That change would allow potential development density near Lake Vanare, within a sensitive area of streams and forested wetlands, to increase from a maximum of 75 buildings per square mile to a maximum potential of 500 buildings per square mile.
“We thank the APA’s staff for following their legal criteria and recommending disapproval of what could be a very damaging land use map change,” said Adirondack Wild’s David Gibson. “Given no public utilities in this area, the presence of 15 acres of wetlands and streams and of undeveloped blocks of forest, this area of Warren County continues to meet the legal description of Rural Use, not Moderate Intensity Use. The agency staff recognized this fact. We trust that the full APA board will concur.”
“The APA staff also recognized that the town’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement contained no information regarding planning for this portion of the town. The lack of planning is a serious matter when it comes to such a severe downzoning proposal. The town was asking APA to do little more than react, on an ad hoc basis, to much higher potential for development than the resources here can accommodate. Such unplanned growth could raise significant environmental and regional planning issues in this portion of Warren County.”
Adirondack Wild board director Chad Dawson, who left the APA’s board late last year, added that “the APA staff properly recognized that the town’s proposal was not ‘consistent with and reflective of the regional nature of the land use and development plan and the regional scale and approach used in its preparation’ (Section 805 of the Adirondack Park Agency Act).” Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve is a not-for-profit, membership organization which acts on behalf of wilderness and wild land values and stewardship.