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Developer resubmits APA application for Jay resort

A Miami-based developer has updated his Adirondack Park Agency application for a resort-style development in the town of Jay nearly nine months after the APA deemed his original application incomplete.

Eric Stackman first submitted an application to the APA last October for a large-scale residential subdivision project off of state Route 9N. The APA gave Stackman a notice of incomplete permit application — or NIPA — last December, saying he couldn’t seek a permit for the project until he submitted more maps and narratives considering the site’s natural resources and history. Starting in August, Stackman began sending the APA additional application materials to fulfill the APA’s requirements for completion.

Stackman is proposing the construction of a resort-style hamlet on 385 acres in the town of Jay. According to the original application, the development would include 20 townhomes, 60 villas with an optional guest suite, 18 estates with an optional guest suite, and possibly six mansions or two hotels containing 17 rooms each. A public comment period for the proposal, held last fall, produced a nearly 200-page-long PDF of comments showing that most people opposed the development.

Once Stackman’s application is considered complete, according to APA application documents, the APA will notify the public, hold another public comment period and start moving through the required consideration process that would ultimately bring the project before the APA board for a vote.

All of the application documents exchanged between Stackman and the APA, starting with Stackman’s original application submitted in October 2021, are available on the APA’s website at tinyurl.com/538ymjd9.

Back and forth

Stackman’s sent 83 pages of additional application materials with resource maps and assessments to the APA on Aug. 3, and the APA responded later that month requesting more information. Stackman submitted even more application materials to the APA at the beginning of September, though the APA has yet to publicly respond to the adequacy of these materials. APA Public Information Officer Keith McKeever didn’t respond to the Enterprise’s questions about Stackman’s application status by press time Monday.

John Burth, an environmental program specialist for the APA and the author of the APA’s two-page response to Stackman’s August resubmission, dismissed four outstanding NIPA requirements he said Stackman’s new application had fulfilled. Burth’s response, submitted to Stackman on Aug. 23, listed three NIPA requirements still left unmet. Burth asked Stackman for some more resource maps and data along with alternative development designs that considered resource impact and different ways the development could be configured.

Stackman submitted another 29 pages of application materials to the APA — mainly a series of maps intended to address Burth’s requests — on Sept. 2. In these materials, Stackman also described a couple of alternative configurations for the development that his group had internally considered and ultimately rejected because the configurations “would entail a substantial amount of land movement, construction and disturbance to sensitive areas.”

To Burth’s request that Stackman verify the feasibility of any proposed water, sewer or electric extensions, Stackman responded that he’s in “preliminary discussions” with the New York State Electric and Gas Corporation and the state Department of Transportation. He also said his engineers have found that a water extension for the property could be successful.

Burth wrote that Stackman is required to submit applications for his project to entities with review authority over the project — like the town of Jay and the state departments of health, transportation and environmental conservation — so that those entities’ different approvals and requirements could be sought and addressed early in the design phase. Stackman said he’s “actively working” on those applications.

Once the APA receives all of these requested items from Stackman, Burth wrote, the APA would likely seek further evaluation of his proposal and identify the required site investigations and reports needed to analyze potential impacts the development could have on natural resources. Stackman would also need to submit final design plans.

Stackman’s proposal is one of the largest developments to come before the APA since 2012, when the agency reviewed a proposal from Pennsylvania-based investment group Preserve Associates for a housing development in Tupper Lake with about 700 units, a spa, marina and an equestrian center. That development didn’t come to fruition.

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