A tweak worth making
Rather than let abandoned state properties rot in the Adirondacks, New York should have greater latitude to shift them to private use.
The Adirondack Park isn’t merely one of New York’s most significant success stories; it’s also the laboratory where the entire nation (and others) developed major elements of the conservation movement. The Blue Line currently serves as the boundary for 6 million acres, 2.7 million of them designated as “forever wild” forest preserve.
Lifting the forever-wild designation from a tract of land — even for something as relatively innocuous as a land swap in which an even larger tract ends up as part of the preserve — is almost as difficult as fitting the proverbial camel through the eye of a needle: It requires nothing less than an amendment to the state constitution, complete with the approval of two consecutively elected Legislatures followed by a statewide vote. While those changes have increased in pace in recent years, there have been fewer than 20 tweaks of this type since the amendment that allowed for the creation of the Whiteface ski resort in 1941.
While these amendments should remain rare and complex, there’s a subset of development changes within the Blue Line that might benefit from some streamlining.
As described recently by the Adirondack Explorer’s Gwendolyn Craig, they involve the handful of “administrative sites” that have been abandoned by the state. These currently include the Camp Gabriels correctional facility outside Saranac Lake, which has been empty since 2009, and the Moriah Shock Incarceration Facility, which ceased operation just last year. The Adirondack Park Agency is currently contemplating moving its offices from Ray Brook to the village of Saranac Lake, a shift that would leave another administrative site empty.
These are not properties where anyone is proposing to — in the immortal words of Joni Mitchell — pave paradise and put up a parking lot. These are built spaces that were already given over to un-wild human use, and which would be unlikely to impact the landscape in any significantly new way if the former bureaucratic (or criminal) occupants were substituted for appropriate private-sector uses. But currently, the only options are to return the properties to another kind of state use or to a foreverwild designation.
Willsboro Supervisor Shaun Gillilland, who chairs the Essex County Board of Supervisors, has discussed the concept of a more sweeping amendment that would allow for this type of state property to be sold for private-sector use. Mr. Gillilland has pointed out that communities within the park — many of them struggling with the same economic challenges endemic to rural areas, regardless of how beautiful the surrounding scenery might be — would prefer these sites to be on the tax rolls and filled with workers, as opposed to vacant structures marring the local viewshed.
Several state legislators from the region are interested in the notion of addressing the issue in this more comprehensive way, even as they press for a more immediate resolution for Camp Gabriels. It’s a conversation worth having — among elected officials, local residents and the advocacy groups who are intent on preserving the beauty of the park while improving the quality of life for those within it.