Seven hours of commentary on Belleayre resort and ski proposals

Hein, Gibson support

Throughout the long hours of commentary from some 120 people out of a crowd of approximately 300, the dominant t-shirt in view stated, straight up, that building out Belleayre would bring the crowds the area needed. Speaker after speaker talked about how bad the economy had become in the 14 years since Gitter first proposed his resort, including the six years since former Governor Eliot Spitzer announced an Agreement in Principal to combine a resort with a Belleayre Ski Center build-out. They pointed out how Phoenicia may have rebounded some, but Delaware County hadn’t. They said enough was enough and with many representing local businesses, a host of town and county officials, and even state legislators and U.S. representatives, they repeatedly noted that the “time is now” for building…for giving the Catskills their chance at some economic development.

March Gallagher, speaking on behalf of Ulster County Executive Mike Hein, talked about the role tourism plays in the local economy…and championed the public-private partnership elements of the proposed Belleayre deal.

“This is how it is done. Neither part will go forward without the other,” she said, mentioning jobs and the creation of a new destination resort. “This project falls squarely into our strategies.”

A representative from Congressman Chris Gibson lent support, as did supervisors from the towns of Andes, Halcott and Middletown, Delaware County officials, and the head of the Central Catskills Chamber of Commerce. People spoke of finding ways to keep their children and children’s children in the region, a difficulty with no jobs, and recalled days when Margaretville and Pine Hill, Fleischmanns and Highmount were thriving communities. Many lambasted those still opposing the grand projects and their infusion of investment funds into the region after a host of troubles, from hurricanes and tropical storms to a downed economy that’s never quite recovered.

State money for private enterprise?

After a 6:00 PM break, the tenor of the room shifted, slightly, as a number of members of the Catskill Heritage Alliance spoke out in favor of a lesser build-out for Belleayre, and hopes for a single hotel resort from Crossoads Ventures. CHA President Kathy Nolan noted endemic problems in the resort’s environmental statement, as well as the state’s failure to flesh out its alternatives for other build-out options, including trails to the east that would lead down into the hamlet of Pine Hill…once the subject of a UMP plan commissioned by the DEC in the late 1980s. She asked about the same marketing questions later raised by the region’s other ski areas, and noted how bad things could end up if this huge investment failed, as some predict.

Consultants for CHA brought up inadequacies in the various plans’ traffic numbers, its stormwater predictions, and its failure to address climate change facts it raised.

“The Catskill Park is a park,” said Judy McLean of the Sierra Club. “Treat it like a park…A state Unit Management Plan should service all New Yorkers whether or not they ski. And there should be no public money for a private development.”

“I know in other places, where other things like this have been built, the developer pays for everything that benefits them,” said Coloton from Hunter Mt., in regards to the state’s planned purchase of the old Highmount Ski Center from Crossroads for development tie-ins to its planned high-end resort and spa there. “”I’ve never heard of this being done with state money, though. In fact, no other state besides New York is in the ski business. New Hampshire was for a while but isn’t any longer.”

He, Seamans of Windham Mt. and Laszlao Vajtay of Ski Plattekill all vowed to fight what they saw as an intrusion into their business livelihoods.

“Is it appropriate that the state of New York should be competing against private businesses?” Coloton asked. “We don’t think so…”

Comments on the latest environmental impact statements for the ski center and resort plans are being accepted through July 24. Comments can be emailed to [email protected] or sent by regular mail to Daniel Whitehead, Region 3 Environmental Permit Administrator, NYSDEC, 21 S. Putt Corners Road, New Paltz, N.Y. 12561.