Adirondack Land Trust Stewardship and GIS Specialist Becca Halter, right, talks about the ALT’s Glenview Preserve, located next to the Harrietstown Cemetery on state Route 86, with preserve neighbor Eileen Jauch, left, and ALT Executive Director Mike Carr, center left, in October 2022. (Enterprise photo — Lauren Yates)

SARANAC LAKE — The Adirondack Land Trust’s proposal to include public access in its management plan for the Glenview Preserve was met by a mixed response from the community at a public meeting Wednesday.

A 238-acre swath of land, known as the Glenview Preserve, surrounds an unofficial pull-off on state Route 86 — next to the Harrietstown Cemetery — where tourists and locals often stop their cars to photograph views of the iconic vista. The ALT has owned the preserve since 2016, and the trust has managed the property for pollinator and wildlife habitat, water quality protection and maple syrup production. But now, according to ALT Stewardship and GIS Specialist Becca Halter, the trust is considering how it could also carve out space for recreation on the property.

ALT Conservation Program Director Chris Jage and Halter, who’s ALT’s point person for the Glenview Preserve property, hosted a public feedback session about the preserve at the Mt. Pisgah Lodge on Wednesday. This was the ALT’s first step to gauge the community’s interest in the possibility through what ALT Communications Director Connie Prickett called a “multi-phase approach” to exploring adding public access to Glenview’s management plan. About 15 people attended the session — many of whom said they live next to or across from the preserve — and they voiced a variety ideas, concerns about and support for potential changes at the preserve.

Sue Abbott-Jones, who lives in the Mt. Pisgah area and enjoys trails like the ones at Heaven Hill in Lake Placid, supported the idea of having accessible trails at the Glenview Preserve. Eileen Jauch, who’s lived across from the Glenview Preserve for 45 years, said she doesn’t think the preserve should be developed at all — she thought the Trevor family, which owned the preserve before ALT, wanted the area to be preserved “for posterity.” Mike Orticelle, who lives near the preserve and serves as a code enforcement officer in Lake Placid, said he was concerned about parking and safety violations; he also questioned the ALT’s motivation behind opening up the preserve to the public.

Jage said that the ALT wants to provide a more accessible Adirondack experience than people often find in the forest preserve. Of the hundreds of miles of trails in the Adirondacks, Jage said, “only a handful are accessible” to people using strollers and wheelchairs, and to people whose mobility is impaired.

“We think we can provide that (accessibility) here,” Jage said of the preserve.

The ALT is working with Saratoga Associates, a Saratoga-based design firm, to come up with designs for development at Glenview Preserve. Saratoga Associates Landscape Architect Alison Yovine presented some slides on Wednesday with mock-up designs featuring minimal, natural design elements — she showed trails mowed through a grassy field, an educational kiosk with hiking information, a fence made of natural materials, a freestanding wood deck for yoga, painting or birdwatching — with the caveat that none of the ideas are locked into a design plan yet. The ALT and Saratoga Associates are looking for more community input before coming up with a development design. The property includes wetlands, forested areas, a couple of small streams, and wildlife including moose, black bears, bobcats, coyotes and more than 80 bird species. Halter said the ALT would consider avoiding or working around sensitive land, wildlife and the nearby cemetery.

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Community feedback

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Halter said the top concern among community members regarding public access at the preserve is the ALT’s top concern, too: Safe ingress and egress from the preserve. People who live near the preserve said they’ve seen traffic and speeds increase over the years — the speed limit is 55 mph, but some people go faster than that — and several homeowners noted multiple car collisions they’ve witnessed or been involved in in that area. When Jage mentioned the possibility of lowering the speed limit along that stretch of the highway, the room erupted with comments of support.

Some people were concerned about the potential of increased traffic with the development — “if you build it, they will come,” Orticelle said. Neighbors were worried that developing the area could increase traffic and safety issues. Dianne Fortado, who lives across from the preserve, suggested sending people to Paul Smith’s Visitor Interpretive Center for accessible trails instead of creating new ones at the preserve.

Jage said that if resource depletion or safety at the preserve become bigger issues at the preserve over time, the ALT would work to mitigate those negative effects — he said the ALT would even consider limiting access to the preserve in the face of such problems. But Halter hopes that developing a clear parking area there would help with the existing safety issues at the existing pull-off.

“All the safety concerns (people have about developing the preserve), they exist now. If we do nothing, they’re still going to be there,” Halter said. “So hopefully we can find a way to provide safe access to what many people view as their favorite view in the entire park.”

Halter said she could see a parking area with around 10 spots being developed around the preserve, noting that it’d probably be necessary to put a portable toilet in the lot. She envisioned two types of visitors coming to the preserve: one visitor who’d park briefly to snap a few photos, and other people who want to park for a longer period and enjoy the trails ALT is considering constructing on the property.

“How many trails you have determines how many parking spots you need,” she said.

The ALT has been talking with the state Department of Transportation about safer locations for potential parking areas than the current pull-off, according to Halter, and Jage noted that an area on Route 86 to the south of the existing pull-off — closer to Donnelly’s Ice Cream — as a stretch of road with better visibility for drivers.

Responding to questions about how the ALT would enforce parking and trespassing violations — the ALT doesn’t want to allow overnight camping on the preserve — Halter said that the ALT staff will be in charge of enforcing those rules. Halter said that three of the ALT’s 14 staff members live in Saranac Lake. Jage added that the ALT has the means to prosecute people who violate the property’s rules. To concerns about an increase in litter around the property, Halter said she liked an idea from a community member who suggested that the ALT adopt that portion of the highway and host clean-ups there.

ALT Executive Director Mike Carr said the trust gets “countless calls” from people requesting to use the preserve for weddings and other events — the preserve has never been open to the public — but Jage said the ALT likely wouldn’t allow that kind of public access on the preserve with the change in use management.

“Hosting weddings is not in our mission statement,” he said.

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Next steps

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Halter said the ALT wants to host at least two more public feedback sessions about the preserve’s future, and she hopes the trust will have some more solid design ideas to present to the community at the next feedback session. In the meantime, the ALT is fielding community comments on and ideas about developing the preserve in an online survey at tinyurl.com/mr3zs6v6. Halter said the next session will probably be scheduled sometime next year. She said that construction on any development at the preserve could start in 2024, depending on permitting processes and contractor availability.

The preserve is in an Adirondack Park Agency resource management zone, according to Halter, so the ALT has to meet certain management standards and apply for any construction permits through the APA.

The ALT purchased the Glenview Preserve, formerly known as Glenview Farm, from the Trevor family in 2016 for $98,000. Even then, according to a 2016 press release from the ALT, the trust was considering including a public access element in its management of the property.