Detailing the facts about
ARISE, the ACR project
ARISE Chairman Jim LaValley gave a brief overview of the organization’s
accomplishment in this its first year at Wednesday’s informational
meeting on the Adirondack Club and Resort project at the Tupper
Lake High School auditorium. Below are some of the key figures in
the ACR project in that evening’s panel, from left, investors Tom
Lawson and Mike Foxman, and their attorney, Robert Sweeney.
Over 100 turn out for ACR
“update” hosted by ARISE
By Dan McClelland
A crowd of well over 100 people, including
Assemblywoman Janet Duprey, came out to ask questions and hear presentations
on the Adirondack Club and Resort project and other community development
projects Wednesday night. The two and one-half hour event at the Tupper
Lake High School auditorium was sponsored by the ARISE organization
(Adirondack Residents Intent on Saving Our Economy).
ARISE Chairman Jim LaValley welcomed the guests that evening and introduced
the panelists: two of the ACR principals Tom Lawson and Mike Foxman,
ACR Attorney Robert Sweeney, Kevin Franke, director of resort development
with the Saratoga Springs-based LA Group, Jim Martin, one of the authors
of the APRAP (Adirondack Park Regional Assessment Project) report
and John Tubbs of the Franklin County Industrial Development Agency.
Among the elected officials in attendance too that evening were Supervisor
Roger Amell, Councilmen Shawn Stuart and Jerry Fletcher, Village Trustees
Tom Snyder and Leon LeBlanc and County Legislator Paul Maroun.
Mr. LaValley began with a brief history of the ARISE organization
which was started here last year. “It started with fear, which led
to anger, which followed with action which has produced new hope.”
One of the economic organization’s first projects was the reopening
of the Big Tupper Ski Center, with the assistance of more than 100
local volunteers.
He said that much of the incentive for the new organization was the
recent APRAP report, commissioned by the Association of Towns and
Villages, the Adirondack North Country Association and others. “It
showed clearly that school enrollment in the park is way down, our
population is aging, energy costs are rising and there is a growing
dependence on public employment in the park.”
The local real estate company owner said that ARISE has taken a “very
aggressive approach” to trying to combat some of these economic ills.
He mentioned the “fear in the eyes of many local business owners”
these days. “On our two-block section of Park Street alone, 40% of
the spaces are filled by professional businesses, 30% of the spaces
are service-related, including retail stores, and 30% of the storefronts
are vacant!”
“We heard of another store closing today,” he added.
In addition to its successful opening of the hometown ski center last
winter after a ten-year absence, he said ARISE has created a new “digital
ecosystem” for Tupper Lake, including a new web site Tupper-Lake.com,
new color street banners and Adirondack-style business directories
and maps around town, constructed by Contractors Jim Meade and Bruce
Phillips.
“Our grass roots organization is intended to become a powerful voice
for economic growth here!”
ARISE will open Big Tupper again this winter, thanks to the scores
of volunteers who want to see it here, but he warned these yearly
ventures are limited at best. “Volunteers opened it, but cannot sustain
the operation in the long run.”
He said the only long-term fix for the ski center is under the ACR
umbrella.
“Our costs last winter approached $130,000- and were covered in large
part by aggressive fundraising and ticket sales. We’re going into
this new season again scratching!”
The reopening of chairlift No. 3 for this season is intended to open
up more trails on the mountain and to take pressure off the main chair,
which is expected to see more traffic this winter. He predicted a
“20% to 30% increase” in ticket sales this winter over the first year
which saw over 8,000 skier visits.
The ARISE organization, which is now moving forward in collaboration
with the Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce, has a number of new taxing
and business incentive programs planned which will be announced in
upcoming months.
“We’re currently studying communities where the business districts
are vibrant” to produce new business programs here which will “make
Tupper Lake stand out” as a place to invest in commerce.
“We must support those businesses that are willing to invest in Tupper
Lake!”
Mr. LaValley also took a few minutes to dispel some current “myths”
about the ACR project.
Myth No. 1: Opening Big Tupper was a way for the new developers to
get the work done. Fact: “Volunteers did it. We had before us the
choice of doing something or doing nothing and we chose the former.”
Myth No. 2: The new people who buy property in the ACR won’t pay property
taxes. Fact: “They will pay the same rate as everyone else here!”
he asserted.
Myth No. 3: The developers will cut and run once they get the permit
from the APA. Fact: If they were going to run they would have run
a long time ago. “In the past seven or eight years the developers
have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Tupper Lake. They
are not going anywhere!”
Myth No. 4: We don’t need the developers to run Big Tupper. Fact:
It can’t be done in the long-run with volunteers. One of our challenges,
for example this year, is sustaining our volunteer base!”
Myth No. 5: the resort will be visible from all directions. Fact:
The visible impact is a large part of the APA permitting process.
Most of the higher elevation housing units, which might have been
partially visible from a distance, have already been removed from
the plan.
Myth No. 6: the sewer and storm sewer systems planned at the new ACR
will somehow pollute our local lakes. “Does anyone believe the state
regulatory agencies will permit that?” he asked the crowd. He said
those systems will have the tightest controls possible.
Myth No. 7: the project is too big and will change the local landscape
forever. “Are you happy with the landscape right now?” he countered,
adding that the 6,200-acre development will contain only 389 building
footprints, which will occupy a tiny fraction of the overall acreage.
He predicted the coming ACR will dramatically improve the economy
of the community.
He quoted former Town Councilman and local business man Rickey Dattola,
one of the founders of ARISE, who described the ACR as “a great new
quarterback to build the new team around.”
First panelist to speak was Jim Martin, who shared with the audience
many of the disturbing economic facts his study uncovered.
Among them was the fact that the overall population of the Adirondack
Park only grew by 233 between 2000 and 2006 (from 131,807 to 132,040).
He called population growth essentially “flat.”
In 1980 the median age of a resident in the park was 33 years. Twenty
years later the average age of a park resident is 41.
“In another 20 years we predict that the only place in the country
where people are older will be the west coast of Florida!”
Young families with children are leaving the Adirondacks in frightening
numbers, was his message.
As one example of the heavy reliance in the park on public employment,
he said the researchers found that in this county alone, four of every
ten people are employed in the government sector. That statistic does
not include all those people employed in education, he noted.
He said that since 1970 school districts in the park (28 wholly in
the park) have lost 31% of their student enrollment- compared with
a statewide drop in enrollment of 22.2%. “Most of this is occurring
in the kindergarten to grade 5 age group,” Mr. Martin said.
Against the big loss in students is a big gain in teachers. Since
1970, the teacher population has increased dramatically by 43%. Student
to teacher ratios have grown from 20 students to one teacher 40 years
ago, to a 10:1 ratio in 2006, according to the APRAP report.
Kevin Franke of the LA Group which has designed the four-season development,
detailed some of the past timetable for the project which was first
announced here in 2004. The APA gave it “conceptual approval” in August
of that year.
He said the ACR application was finally deemed completed by the APA
in December, 2006. Two months later the APA board of commissioners
identified ten major issues which it felt needed complete review and
ordered a court-style adjudicatory hearing to accomplish that.
Mr. Franke said his clients agreed to mediation talks as part of the
review several months later and those meetings involving over 30 parties
ran from October of 2007 to June 29, 2009 when his clients terminated
it. Through those talks three of the ten issues were eliminated, he
noted.
Since then, at the request of the APA staff, a voluminous amount of
new information about the project was generated by his company and
others, which included the updating of over 220 plans and complete
sewer system redesign and overall economic and fiscal analysis. That
material was eventually filed with the APA this past June.
He predicted the adjudicatory hearing could commence this fall, once
all the parties agree on a timetable for the sessions.
Mr. Franke also compared the plan details between the first design
in 2004 and redrafted ones this year. The proposed 826 housing units
have been reduced to 730. Eliminated were many of the more expensive
higher elevation housing units. The number of buildings were reduced
from 420 to the current number of 343.
He said that the 25 great camps proposed on very large lots in the
first design have become 31 very clustered houses on smaller lots
(25 to 30 acres in size), and eight more positioned on larger lots
(between 110 acres and 700). For many of the great camp lots the “envelopes”
where the actual buildings can be erected have been reduced from five
acres to three. All the remaining acreage on the great camp lots must
remain as forestlands.
Originally the developers had proposed annexing the property to the
village in order to receive village services. That was later changed
when the planned development district in the town was created four
years ago.
-And originally, bonding through the village government was proposed
for the creation of the new infrastructure on the mountain (roads,
sewer, water, electrical systems). Now that phased work will be financed
by bonds through the county industrial development agency.
Also removed from the project plan in the years since its announcement,
according to the planner, have been the Orvis shooting school, the
second waste water treatment station off Lake Simond Road and over
60 of the higher elevation housing units which would have been the
very popular “ski in, ski out” varieties. “These were very difficult
for the investors to give up,” he told the audience.
“Yes, it is a big project,” Mr. Franke admitted, “but it won’t happen
overnight.” The construction of all the housing units and other buildings
will occur over 14 years in four different phases, it is estimated.
He said the project covers 6,261 acres of property in the southern
section of the township. Under the APA land use laws, 1,128 houses
are permitted, yet the developers are proposing only 730- and most
of them in clustered areas. Of the total acreage, development will
only affect 859 acres or 8% of the total property.
Jim Martin returned to the microphone to give a brief overview of
the economic impact of the development.
During construction, 313 new jobs will be created here generating
an average annual payroll of $9.68 million. Once the development is
finished, the number of permanent jobs will total 524 part-time and
full time- 81 at the ski area itself and 443 jobs at the various resort
amenities. An annual payroll of $4.64 million is estimated, he noted.
Mr. Martin continued that the annual spending by the new people who
will buy houses in the ACR will total over $9 million. Visitors who
will come to the resort are expected to spend $22.6 million each year.
That $32 million per year in new spending in the community is expected
to generate the need for over 84,000 square feet of new retail space
here, he said.
When the “build out” is completed in 14 years, the real estate at
the development will contribute $2.4 million per year in tax revenue
to the county, $2.248 million more in taxes to the town and $6.4 million
more to the school district- an amount almost equal to the current
school district tax levy. The village water and electric systems will
earn about another $60,000 and $51,000, respectively, each per year
from the development properties.
From the standpoint of gains for those taxing entities, he called
the new revenues “almost mind boggling.”
Calling the proposed PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program “one
of the biggest ACR issues” Mr. LaValley called on John Tubbs of the
county IDA to explain the procedure.
Mr. Tubbs admitted there has been considerable “misunderstanding”
here about the PILOT project the developers are discussing with his
agency.
By its creation under state statute, industrial development agencies
in New York State are exempt from taxes, he told the audience.
In the case of the ACR, the county IDA “would take control of all
the property, either by deed or lease,” Mr. Tubbs continued.
Instead of town, county and school taxes, the ACR owners would make
PILOT payments to his agency, which would then redistribute the money
to the three taxing jurisdictions here based on the same rates as
if the property owners were paying taxes directly to them.
He said all the money loaned to the developers would be backed by
private bonds sold to investors on the national bond markets which
would typically be banks, brokerage house, pension funds and private
investors.
“There is no risk to the taxpayers or to the county,” he said of the
widely used financing procedure.
Attorney Bob Sweeney said the bonds issued for the ACR would be used
to pay for the costs of seven miles of new roads in the development
and for the development of the water, sewer, storm sewer and electric
systems to service the new houses and resort buildings.
“We will use the bonds for what they were intended to be used for
by the state legislature: economic development,” the ACR attorney
told the audience.
He dispelled the myth that property taxpayers here would somehow be
subsidizing the ACR. The property taxes paid by the ACR developers
and the new housing unit owners will be at the same rates as everyone
else here pays. The amounts will be larger, in fact, because assessments
of those new buildings are expected to be relatively high, based on
the sales prices.
“There’s no free rides for anyone…no subsidized rides,” he asserted.
He said some of the PILOT money will also go towards the debt service
on the money borrowed to install all the new services.
Mr. Sweeney said that when the project wins a permit from the APA
in upcoming months, the developers will purchase the Oval Wood Dish
Liquidating Trust lands on and around Mt. Morris at an agreed upon
sales price that will automatically see tax revenues here increase
from the current assessment on those lands.
The current taxes generated by those forest lands are about $63,000
per year, based on the current assessment of $3.59 million and will
jump by over $100,000 to over $169,172, just based on the new purchase
price for the nine parcels of $6.78 million price, the fiscal and
economic analysis estimated.
Before the question and answer session began, Assemblywoman Janet
Duprey told the audience that she and her colleagues Senator Betty
Little and Assemblywoman Theresa Sayward were in full support of the
project. “There is no better project for the north country than the
ACR.” She said the PILOT financing proposed “works well for economic
development.”
Councilman Shawn Stuart asked the investors about their “timeline”
predictions.
While admitting he was “hesitant” to predict schedules, Michael Foxman
said that if all goes well in the weeks ahead, the pre-conference
hearing leading up to the full adjudicatory hearing could be held
in October.
He said that after a September 8 conference call between the administrative
law judge and the various parties, everyone will have a better idea
of the procedures ahead.
The pace of the schedule depends in large part if there is any “stalling”
by the preservationist groups involved, he noted.
Mr. Foxman said when it is completed the ACR will be the only facility
of its size in the entire Adirondack Park, which should bode well
for its success, given the 7 million people who live within a six
or seven hour drive from Tupper Lake.
“The Tupper Lake community needs us, as we need it,” Mr. Foxman noted,
pointing to some of the economic statistics unveiled by Mr. Martin
that evening.
“The preservationist groups have been noticeably quiet of late and
I hope it stays that way…it’s hard for them to fight the facts!”
He predicted that if all goes well at the adjudicatory hearing in
late fall or early in the new year, the road building will begin and
the investors could start selling lots next summer.
The ski area is now open, thanks to ARISE, he said. Improvements to
the mountain facility will occur in upcoming years as the lots are
sold. The pace of the ski area reconstruction will depend on the nation’s
economy and the demand for lots on the mountain.
Next person to ask a question was Realtor Rob Gillis, who said: “I
am hearing you loud and clear that the bonds will not be on the taxpayers’
dole?”
That is correct, Mr. Foxman told him. “If for some reason we were
to default on the bond payments, there would be no loss to the county
IDA…there is no risk to taxpayers here!”
Big Tupper Mountain Manager Bill Mozdzier, who is also active on the
rescue squad, asked if there would be new ACR revenues to help the
fire department and rescue squad here.
Currently the fire department receives funding from both the town
and village governments and the rescue squad covers its volunteer
operation by billing patients’ insurance plans for its services.
Jim Martin said that as more property owners build homes in the ACR,
when they need medical assistance, their insurance policies will also
be billed by the squad. As the property assessments on the mountain
grow through the advancement of the development there will be more
town tax revenues available to help the fire department, he explained.
Asked by Press-Republican Reporter Kim Dedam to elaborate on the bonding,
Mr. Foxman said they intend to request a series of smaller bond issues,
tied to the phasing of the development. “We don’t intend to develop
the infrastructure far in advance of lot sales,” he explained.
Asked by North Country Public Radio’s Brian Mann about division of
the PILOT funds paid by the new property owners, Mr. Foxman said some
of it will be used to pay off the financing on the infrastructure
costs the investors will incur and the balance will go to the three
taxing entities. “We are making capital improvements that normally
a municipality would make.”
The reporter asked them to discuss the risks to the IDA if the project
fails. “If you fail, why wouldn’t the bond market look unfavorably
at the Franklin County IDA in the future?”
Mr. Foxman said it wouldn’t. “There are IDAs all over the country”
and as economic development tools they only risk what they invest.
He said if some of the infrastructure is installed and some time later
the development failed, the IDA would own a property that has been
substantially improved and worth more money.
“There would be no effect on Franklin County’s credit rating in the
event of a project failure,” he told Mr. Mann. “You can confirm what
I’m saying by talking with any bonding agency!”
John Tubbs confirmed Mr. Foxman’s point that there was no credit risk
to the county.
Asked how any new assessment growth in the school district would effect
state aid to the district, Jim Martin said his figures only reflect
what new tax revenue the district will receive as the ACR unfolds.
“All I can tell you is right now you have a tax base in contraction.
The ACR will change that. In school districts where the tax base is
growing, you see a more stable tax rate. Generally speaking, a growing
tax base is a positive thing for a school district.”
Moody Road resident Fred Schuller asked about the foreclosure procedure
in the PILOT arrangement, should payments not be made.
Mr. Tubbs said in the event payments aren’t made on any or all properties,
the IDA would foreclose on the respective properties in very much
the same way a bank does.
“The property or properties would be sold, and a new buyer would step
in,” Bob Sweeney added.
“-And what happens if the property can’t be sold?” Mr. Schuller pressed.
“Then the bond holders would get stuck!” the attorney said.
Reporter John Alexander of WNBZ asked what is the worst that would
happen to Tupper Lake by the arrival of the ACR and any subsequent
failure.
“If we fail, you still have an improved property with an APA permit,”
Mr. Foxman told him. “If we can’t make this work, someone else surely
can. The chance for any loss to the municipality is slim to none!”
Josh Pratt asked the investors to elaborate on the promise they have
made to keep Big Tupper open to the public for at least 50 years.
Why not forever? he asked.
“After 50 years we have no intention of making it private. Saying
‘forever’ doesn’t feel good to a real estate attorney. As long as
it is operating, it will be open to the public.”
Mr. Foxman predicted the ski area, a key element of the new development,
will continue to operate as long as it is supported by the people
in the ACR and by the general public.
