Court upholds Belleayre resort permits
The Catskill Heritage Alliance and some adjacent landowners had filed suit after the review process was halted
The proposed Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park scored a major victory Thursday, when an appellate court upheld a lower court ruling that found that permits issued for the project by the state Department of Environmental Conservation were valid.
The decision handed down Thursday by the state Supreme Court Appellate Division’s Third Judicial Department came as a blow to the Catskill Heritage Alliance, which had argued that state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens wrongly refused to return the proposal to an adjudication process that had begun several years ago, before the project was downsized in 2007.
“This is disappointing because we feel that basically, the length of the review process led to the commission and then the court accepting a process for review that was less rigorous than we think every project should have,” said Kathy Nolan, chairman of the Catskill Heritage Alliance board and an Ulster County Democratic legislator from Shandaken.
The Catskill Heritage Alliance and several adjacent landowners filed the lawsuit after Martens halted the review process in July 2015 and instructed his department to issue the permits necessary for the $365 million resort, which is to straddle the border of Ulster and Delaware counties near the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center, to be built.
The Catskill Heritage Alliance wanted the adjudication process to restart so a smaller version of the resort could be considered.
In December 2017, state Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba dismissed that lawsuit, saying alternatives “had been re-
viewed and found to be lacking in merit.”
In upholding Ryba’s ruling, the Appellate Division rejected each and every contention raised by the Catskill Heritage Alliance and others, saying critics failed to raise any substantive or significant visual impact issue requiring adjudication and finding that Mertens had a rational basis for his decision.
“We’re extremely pleased by the detail to which the court rendered their decision,” said Gary Gailes, a spokesman for resort developer Crossroads Ventures. “I don’t think they held anything back, I think the decision was very clear.”
Crossroads Ventures still has another legal hurdle to clear before it can move forward with the project, which was first proposed 18 years ago: an appeal by Catskill Heritage Alliance now pending in the Appellate Division over a ruling in a separate lawsuit against the Shandaken Planning Board’s approval of the project is currently pending before the Appellate Division.
Crossroads Ventures has proposed constructing the Belleayre Resort, which will consist of the Highmount Spa and Resort and the Wildacres Resort, on 740 acres that straddle the border of Ulster and Delaware counties near Belleayre Mountain Ski Center.
Wildacres, on about 250 acres, would have a 250room hotel, 163 other lodging units in multi-unit buildings detached from the hotel and an 18-hole golf course. The Highmount portion of the project, on just under 240 acres, would have a 120-unit hotel with spa facilities, 53 time share units in the hotel building, a multi-level lodge with 27 more time share units and 16 detached lodging units in eight duplex buildings.