LAKE PLACID — The state Legislature is considering a constitutional amendment that would allow New York to purchase at least 2,500 acres of land for the Forest Preserve, if approved by New York voters.
The purchase would offset up to 323 acres of Forest Preserve land at the Olympic Sports Complex at Mount Van Hoevenberg that either has already been or could be further developed.
The amendment, crafted by state employees, green groups and the state Olympic Regional Development Authority itself, seeks to codify this development on Forest Preserve lands at Mount Van Hoevenberg, an authorization which all parties say has been missing for a long time.
Mount Van Hoevenberg operates on land that is owned by both the town of North Elba and the state. The state land is zoned as an intensive use area in the state’s land classification system and is the subject of the offset.
The facilities there are operated by ORDA. Those include a combined bobsled, luge and skeleton sliding track; trails for Nordic skiing and biathlon events; the Mountain Pass Lodge and various other supporting infrastructure. The site has played host to two Olympic Games and numerous world cup events.
Mount Van Hoevenberg
The land offset requires an amendment to Article 14, Section 1 of the New York State Constitution, the “forever wild” clause.
The offset stems from development that has taken place on the Forest Preserve land that Mount Van Hoevenberg partially sits on. Protect the Adirondacks! Executive Director Claudia Braymer, whose green group helped draft the amendment, said these developments violated the state constitution’s “forever wild” clause. At the same ime, Braymer said Protect understands the economic and community benefit the venue brings to the region.
“We recognize … that Mount Van Hoevenberg is an important community asset, an economic engine for the area, so it isn’t in anyone’s best interest to go to court over this,” she said. “We just want to make sure it’s cleared up and the integrity of the Forest Preserve is protected — and in this case, that means making an amendment so that what they have done there is legally authorized.”
“ORDA places a high priority on its environmental stewardship obligations for all of its facilities, and especially the ones located on Forest Preserve lands,” ORDA spokesperson Darcy Norfolk said.
Norfolk said since Mount Van Hoevenberg’s first Unit Management Plan was created in 1986, nearly every UMP since has noted the need to address the “forever wild” status of the state lands there.
While state-owned ski areas at Whiteface Mountain, Gore Mountain, and Belleayre Mountain each have Article 14 amendments authorizing their use, she said, there’s never been a constitutional amendment to explicitly authorize the Mount Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex.
“We now have an opportunity through this cooperatively negotiated amendment to place Mount Van Hoevenberg in the same status,” Norfolk said. “This amendment is intended to protect the integrity of the Forest Preserve by constitutionally authorizing the historic use of this Forest Preserve land to support world-class Nordic skiing and biathlon training and competition, as well as recreational Nordic skiing and other recreational uses.”
She added that this is consistent with the state Legislature’s intent in establishing ORDA.
Norfolk said the amendment would clearly define the parameters of future planning at Mount Van Hoevenberg and provide a certainty about trail development, events and competitions that take place on the Forest Preserve that has been lacking for a long time.
Braymer claimed development being at odds with the state constitution have been drawn out over a long time.
“This goes back decades,” she said. “And to be fair, it goes back before ORDA was even in place managing the lands when they were starting to do tree-cutting and establish Nordic skiing trails on the Forest Preserve side in a way that would have been in excess of the constitutional limits set by case law for tree cutting.”
Braymer said that the 323 acres that would be authorized to be developed in accordance with the facility’s unit land management plan would not only remedy the developments that Protect! claimed already occurred, but provide some extra room for future expansion.
“It gives some leeway going forward up to the 323 acres to do other things like add additional trails or parking lots … sanitary facilities, offices, lodges,” she said.
Corresponding pending legislation also stipulates certain types of facilities that would not be allowed to be built on the Forest Preserve land that Mount Van Hoevenberg operates on.
These include hotels, condominiums, zip lines, swimming pools, tennis courts, all-terrain vehicle use or paths for the public and “other structures and improvements which are not directly related to and necessary for operation, maintenance and public use of the sports complex; or any structure located at or above an elevation of 2,200 feet above sea level used for the sale of any goods, services, merchandise, food or beverage.”
A lengthy process
Amending the constitution is cumbersome. Voters have the final say, as changes to the state constitution require a simple majority to be ratified. Before that, though, the amendments must be approved by both bodies of the state Legislature in two consecutive sessions.
Concurrent resolutions for this amendment having been introduced in both the state Assembly and Senate, and were first passed in the 2023-24 legislative session. The amendment could receive its second passage in either 2025 or 2026 before it is put to voters statewide in either the 2025 or 2026 general election.
Environmental groups are hoping that action comes sooner rather than later. Brayer said her organization supports the proposed amendment, but it was worried that with the state budget negotiations running behind schedule and taking up assembly members’ and senators’ time, other legislative initiatives would be shelved.
“One of the challenges now will be as the budget gets pushed later and later, it just leaves less and less time for the Legislature to do some of these other things that it needs to get through before they all leave for the summer,” she said. “We don’t want to see it get left behind.”
State Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Chateaugay Lake, introduced the constitutional amendment resolution in the Assembly, as well as the corresponding legislative “intent and purpose” resolution providing a roadmap for the state to act, should the amendment make it to the ballot and be approved by voters.
The amendment resolution, as well as the intent and purpose resolution, were introduced in the upper chamber by state Sen. Pete Harckham, D-South Salem, and are co-sponsored by state Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury.
Jones told the Enterprise on Wednesday that, despite the budget delays, he was confident the resolutions would be passed by both chambers and put on the ballot for voters to decide in the 2025 General Election.
“Hopefully we can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time here in Albany,” he said. “With the budget getting pushed back, maybe some priorities don’t have the timeframe that they should have or usually have, but I believe this still has a great chance of passing this year.”
If the amendment does not pass for any reason — the legislature does not get to it or state voters reject it — the state would have to wait another two years to try again.
“On this piece of legislation, I don’t see any obstacles that are going to be preventive of doing this,” Jones said.
Offset lands
Jones said the land offset ratio was “pretty standard.” He anticipated that, if approved by the voters, the state would be able to identify and purchase land as stipulated in the would-be amendment.
While the proposed amendment requires that the land offset occur somewhere within the Adirondacks, it does not specify where it has to be purchased beyond that. John Sheehan, the communications director for the Adirondack Council, a conservation organization, said that traditionally, land offsets have been purchased within the same county — Essex in Mount Van Hoevenberg’s case.
Sheehan added that until the state is ready to purchase the land for the offset, not much about it is revealed.
“Generally, they don’t fix on a single tract so that they don’t end up driving the price through the roof by getting it identified ahead of time,” he said. “But, they’ve probably got a couple of places in mind.”
The proposed resolutions call for the legislature to determine that what is being purchased for the offset is of equal or greater value than the 323 acres at Mount Van Hoevenberg that would be authorized for development in accordance with the aforementioned purposes and restrictions.
“We’re not really talking about real estate value here, because that’s based on development potential,” Sheehan said. “What we’re talking about is conservation value. We’re looking for lands that would be of high conservation potential — whether it’s important habitat, maybe steep slopes that would be hard to develop or undesirable to develop or wetlands. … It would not be land that would be really suited to some other purpose. It would be land that is in really pristine shape already or with the potential to grow into really good shape in the future.”
To view the concurrent resolution that proposes a state constitutional amendment, visit tinyurl.com/6mdyb4n4. To view the corresponding concurrent enabling resolution, visit tinyurl.com/3dpmjsu4.