Community Views
Letter to the Editor Newsday 2/21/2008
Economic problems afflicting upstate New York are not unique to that region. Economic stagnation is widesspread throughout America. The fact that Governor Spitzer and the state legislature are trying to address the problem is commendable but it’s worth recognizing that the problems and solutions are national in scope and have much in common. National priorities have to change from bending over backwards to enrich multi-national corporations to creating meaningful, sustainable and environmentally sound jobs for Americans. The form this job creation takes will be as varied as the people and geography of the US but, again, the particular projects should have these common criteria. Governor Spitzer’s recomendations for economic stimulation projects upstate do not always adhere to these principles of smart development and are at times inconsistent with his own rhetoric. Case in point-his public-private plan for a mega-development at the State-owned Belleayre Mountain Ski Center. The plan is not significantly downsized from a previous universally assailed development proposal. The development would be located in the heart of the NY City watershed. Runoff would drian into NY City’s largest unfiltered water source-Pepacton Reservoir. The development brokered by the governor would be the largest in the history of the watershed. The success of the proposed destination resort rests on skiing and golf. Expanding Belleayre Mountain Ski Center to support this timeshare development is not an environmentally sound undertaking. Demand for golf is also already lagging behind supply. There are many positive opportunities for development upstate, particularly in the Catskill region. The economic vibrancy of the hamlets is showing signs of recovery. Economic development grants should support hamlet enterprises. Rail trails for biking and trekking are booming throughout the country. These also keep development in the hamlets where it can do the most good with the least environmental damage. Governor Spitzer needs to uniformly apply the the smart development test before throwing his support and our tax dollars at upstate projects.
Sincerely,
Matthew Frisch
Arkville, NY
Governor Spitzer:
Please stop interfering with the SEQR process. The Belleayre Resort had the worst review in NYS history. It would flood sparsely populated rural communities with 300 additional poverty wage workers, creating a housing crisis and a severe drain on the social services. Such large scale development is simply wrong for the NYC watershed. If our pollution problems don’t get better it will cost NYC $40 BILLION for water filtration. This resort and the others that would inevitably follow in its precedent will worsen the storm water runoff, flooding, siltation and contamination of the reservoirs. Gitter is a lousy businessman. He has lost millions of his investor’s dollars and has suffered five suspicious fires at his developments including two catastrophic total loss fires. If you want to do some good, what we need is revitalization of the hamlets and grants to small businesses. Save the $75 million you plan to spend on Belleayre to benefit Gitter’s project- that is corporate welfare and everyone knows it except for a few highly paid lobbyists and PR people working for Gitter. Let this awful plan die a natural death and take it off life support that will ultimately cost everyone in NYS $40 BILLION. The Belleayre resort is a bad investment. Save the Catskills for future generations.
Please read this excerpt from NY Times article 2/21/2008 “More Americans Are Giving Up Golf”
“Over the past decade, the leisure activity most closely associated with corporate success in America has been in a kind of recession. The total number of people who play (golf) has declined or remained flat each year since 2000, dropping to about 26 million from 30 million, according to the National Golf Foundation and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.
More troubling to golf boosters, the number of people who play 25 times a year or more fell to 4.6 million in 2005 from 6.9 million in 2000, a loss of about a third. The industry now counts its core players as those who golf eight or more times a year. That number, too, has fallen, but more slowly: to 15 million in 2006 from 17.7 million in 2000, according to the National Golf Foundation… …The disappearance of golfers over the past several years is part of a broader decline in outdoor activities — including tennis, swimming, hiking, biking and downhill skiing — according to a number of academic and recreation industry studies….”
Now is not the time to spend scarce tax dollars subsidizing golf and skiing.
Dave Channon – Shandaken, NY
Comments from Matthew Frisch, coordinator Highmount Preservation Association
An open letter to Governor Spitzer-
Regarding misstatements you made about the Belleayre Resort AIP brokered by your office-The number of units called for in the AIP is 85% of the number of units included in the universally assailed previous proposal. At 85%, this does not represent a significantly smaller build alternative. The land area that would be disturbed is significantly smaller but that fact is a two-edged sword. On a smaller piece of land, the impact of essentially the same number of units would be that much more severe.
Moreover, the new Highmount Spa Resort section first mentioned in the AIP calls for intensive development beginning at 2600’ and sprawling up and over the ridge top over 3000’. No part of the previous proposal called for such high elevation intensive development. The 18 3-bedroom houses planned for the top of the ridge would be visible from all points of the compass.
There is no such thing, by the way, as green construction on a mountaintop. LEEDS construction methods cannot begin to compensate for the energy expended in pumping water and delivering supplies and guests to the top of the mountain. This is vanity development, in this case paid for with our tax dollars. The Highmount Spa Resort is a gift to Crossroads Ventures that makes no environmental sense.
We can only guess why you are willing to support this sort of backward, irresponsible development. If development on high mountain slopes and mountain tops above 3000’ in Catskill Park, a stone’s throw from the “forever wild” Catskill Forest Preserve, is not only allowed but actively supported by state government, what kind of precedent are you setting for future development in scenic regions of the state?
You stated in your recent call-in show on WAMC with Alan Chartock that development was taken off steep slopes. In fact, the main building of the Wildacres Resort would sit on a 35 percent slope. Moreover, the language in the AIP does not prohibit construction on slopes steeper than 20 percent. It only limits steep slope construction, “to the greatest extent possible.” The “greatest extent possible” would be to get intensive development completely off of high mountain slopes rather than leaving it up to the developer to judge the meaning of that vague phrase.
The AIP makes all environmental stipulations conditional on “market conditions.” Even if there was a means of enforcing the recommendations contained in the AIP, the developer can simply cite “changing market conditions” and do whatever will yield the highest profit. The golf course, for example is only required to be organic for five years. After that, the developer can opt out of compliance and the authorities would be toothless to prevent pesticides from draining into Pepacton Reservoir. Moreover, organic management does not preclude fertilizers. Do we really want phosphorous and nitrogen in NY City’s largest body of unfiltered drinking water? Perhaps that is part of your calculus- Pepacton will have to be filtered sooner or later. In the absence of any rational explanation for your office’s promotion of the largest development in the history of the NY City watershed, we have to assume the worst about you and your motives.
In your comments on Mr. Chartock’s program, you incorrectly state that Congressman Maurice Hinchey continues to support the AIP. The headline in the resort-friendly Kingston Daily Freeman of Jan. 16 proclaimed, Hinchey now opposes Belleayre plan
Hinchey said the “only people” who will benefit from the Belleayre development will be “the investors and a few others.”
In your comments about the proposed mega-development on other occasions, you have stated that there is overwhelming community support for the development. At the DEC public scooping sessions, anti-development comments outnumbered development boosters 5 to 1. Letters to the editors of local papers including the Catskill Mountain News, the Phoenicia times and the Daily Freeman oppose the development by a similar proportion. The pro-development website has barely 1000 signatures on their petition supporting the development. Our Save the Mountain petition has 2700 signatures! People know a sell out of the environment and the commons to big money interests when they see one. The economic benefits of this project are only guaranteed for the tiny group of investors. For everyone else, the net result is anything but guaranteed. What is guaranteed is the degradation of our quality of life and of the environmental security of all New Yorkers.A real compromise that respects community character and the sanctity of the environment is possible but first you have to face the fact that this development that turns over $56 million tax dollars to enrich private developers is dead.
Sincerely, Matthew Frisch, coordinator
Highmount Preservation AssociationHighmount, NY