SARANAC LAKE – West End Blend, a 10-piece pop, soul and hip-hop band, was well into its second set at the Waterhole’s Party on the Patio around 10:20 p.m. Thursday as the village Planning Board cast a historic vote across the street at the Harrietstown Town Hall.

The band’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” could be heard inside the second-floor village offices as the board voted 4-0 to approve, with a long list of conditions, a proposed 93-room, $18 million resort on Lake Flower.

For some, the vote and the music may have made them want to dance. For others, the song’s lyrics about “writing’s on the wall” and “seven years of bad luck” may have seemed fitting.

“We are pleased that there was an approval,” project manager Jacob Wright wrote in an email this morning.

“It’s really exciting. My heart’s beating out of my chest,” new Planning Board member Donna Difara said after the vote. “This is really something for Saranac Lake – a big Christmas present in July.”

The board’s decision came after more than three hours of deliberations Thursday night. It ends more than three years of complicated and exhaustive village review of the project, but it doesn’t mean Saranac Lake Resort LLC can start construction yet. In addition to satisfying the Planning Board’s conditions, the company still needs approval from the state Adirondack Park Agency.

“We are currently focused on the APA finalization and meeting with our construction partners on a weekly basis to ensure we can start work immediately after an approval,” Wright wrote.

203 River St.

Thursday’s session began with more discussion of an issue that’s clouded the project in recent weeks: the developers’ decision to no longer use 203 River St. for off-site parking for the resort, which is planned on a trio of Lake Flower Avenue motel properties.

The River Street parcel was included in the Lake Flower Planned Unit Development District, a new zoning area the village Board of Trustees created for the project last year. Opponents of the project have said its removal from the current resort plan requires Saranac Lake Resort LLC to submit a new PUDD application to the village board.

Village attorney Janelle LaVigne told the Planning Board Thursday that the village board recently re-reviewed its “legislative intent” behind including 203 River St. in the PUDD and “resolved the site plan was properly before the Planning Board for review.”

Board member Molly Hann asked what that means for 203 River St. and its owners, a so-far unidentified group called Malone Real Estate LLC. Are they subject to the Planning Board’s site plan approval, or would they need some kind of variance to develop it in the future, she asked.

“I believe that’s a gray area,” LaVigne said. “I believe that, down the road, if they desire to develop it that their procedure at that time would be to apply to the village board to have that property removed from the PUDD.”

Village Community Development Director Jeremy Evans said the village board could remove 203 River St. from the Lake Flower PUDD on its own, or the property owner could petition the village board to remove it.

—

Acreage issue

Hann also said she was concerned that the acreage of the project had changed since the board’s last meeting. With the removal of 203 River St., it had been down to 2.97 acres, which is less than the 3 acres required for a PUDD under village law.

Based on new survey data provided by the developers, however, the project site is now 4.17 acres. Bill Kissel, an attorney for Saranac Lake Resort LLC, said questions raised by the APA prompted the new survey, which found the motel properties also include land under part of the lake’s Pontiac Bay.

“It was always there, but we weren’t aware of it,” Kissel said. “In terms of the PUDD law, and we question whether there was an issue over the less than 3 acres, we clearly now have well in excess of the acreage stated in the PUDD law.”

—

Approval

Evans, LaVigne and some Planning Board members said the board could move forward with their site plan review despite these changes, but Hann said the questions surrounding 203 River St. and the change in acreage should be cleared up first. She moved to return the project to the village board so it could amend the Lake Flower PUDD, removing 203 River St. and adjusting the site’s boundaries, but the motion failed for lack of a second.

“I’m not doing this as a stall tactic by any means,” Hann said. “The clearer it can be when we walk away from this project, the better.”

Later, when the board granted site plan approval, Hann was the only one who didn’t vote yes on the project. She abstained.

“I am wholly in favor of the amendments that we’ve made and the conditions; however, my level of discomfort with the 203 River Street situation is high enough that my preference would be to take 203 River Street off the table entirely and then approve the project,” she said.

The board then unanimously approved a separate motion, drafted by Hann, that recommends the village board amend the Lake Flower PUDD to remove 203 River St. and clarify its boundaries to include the new survey data.

—

Conditions

The board’s approval came with more than a dozen conditions that address some of the controversial issues surrounding the project.

It required a “semi-public” viewing deck behind the resort’s lakeside restaurant to have two different levels, a higher one for resort guests and a lower one for the public, so the latter will feel “welcome and comfortable” there. It also required a plan to be submitted for off-site parking during periods of high occupancy.

Another condition requires the developers to provide specifics on the resort’s interior floor plan. Based on what’s been provided so far, board Chairwoman Leslie Karasin said she didn’t even known if the building will have 93 guest rooms. Karasin also added language, which she admitted was more subjective, that encourages the developers to refine their design to reduce the overall mass of the project, an issue throughout the board’s review.

Difara argued that the applicants shouldn’t have to say what they’re doing with the inside of the building.

“As an architect, when somebody starts dictating to me how I’m going to design my building, I get a little pissy,” she said.

Board members C.J. Hagmann and Dave Trudeau noted, however, that the use of the interior space, like the size of the hotel’s conference center and restaurants, dictates how much parking is needed on the site, an issue that’s under the board’s jurisdiction. Hann said Karasin’s language doesn’t require the developers to reduce the mass of the building; it just encourages them to consider it.

—

Messy project

Karasin said she came into Thursday’s meeting with “several very significant concerns.

“I think this is a complicated and messy project,” she said. “I would have preferred to have dealt with it differently. I would have preferred to have a shorter list of conditions with more of these things nailed down. But given where the applicant is in terms of what material they’re able to provide at this time, I think we’ve done as well as we possibly could.”