The sign facing state Route 3 for the Saranac Lake Marina is seen here in March 2022. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — A project to build covers for docks at a marina on Ampersand Bay on Lower Saranac Lake is heading back to the Adirondack Park Agency board next week.

This comes a few months after the state Supreme Court blocked an APA permit allowing a larger version of the project. It also comes after neighbors and environmental advocates sued the state and marina owners in a case that has taken several years to make its way through the courts. As a result of this court ruling, the developers reconfigured their plans to decrease wetland impacts.

The APA is accepting written public comments on this project through Monday, June 12.

Comments should be addressed to APA Environmental Program Specialist John Burth at rpcomments@apa.ny.gov. This variance will be presented to the APA board at its June 15 and 16 meetings.

At a Monday hearing on the project, numerous customers and employees of the marina spoke in favor of the project, saying they support it because they feel the marina owners have been responsible caretakers of the lake; the marina allows working class boat owners access to the waters; and the dock covers drastically reduce wear and tear to their vessels.

Thomas Jorling, a former commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation who owns a home on Pinehurst Road directly across the bay from a portion of the project, spoke against the project, saying he doesn’t think it will hold up in court again. Claudia Braymer, an attorney who has represented Jorling in court, said the variance is for a problem the marina owners created, and is not necessary for the project.

In March, the state Supreme Court blocked a permit the APA issued for the marina, saying the APA undervalued the wetlands protection needed at the site by interpreting its regulations in a way that the court deemed “unreasonable,” and which “lacked a rational basis.”

Mike Damp, a managing member of the marina LLC, said he started this project because he saw the “slow decay” of the former Crescent Bay Marina and he believed it needed developers to “bring it back to life.”

Damp said the main marina location has existed since 1924 and the annex since the late 1950s. He showed photos of the prior buildings, which sat at wonky angles. They demolished these old boathouses hugging the shoreline in 2015 and put in new floating docks. They want to install roofs on 174 of the 277 total slips at the marina’s two sites to protect the boats there. That is why they have requested this variance.

Attorney Matt Norfolk, who represents LS Marina LLC, said roofs reduce wear and tear on boaters’ boats. He said people expect covered slips at marinas, while listing numerous local marinas that offer coverings.

The proposed footprint of the development is 36,760 square feet greater than would be allowed without a variance.

APA spokesman Keith McKeever said the APA must consider several things: The potential adverse impacts to the applicant if the variance is denied; if the request if for the minimum relief necessary to the project to continue; the project’s impacts to neighbors; if the project will adversely affect the environment; and if setting any conditions on the project would change any of these.

There are four docks at the main marina site with a total combined 36,000 square feet of variance requested — 3,275 square feet at Dock One, 14,065 at Dock Two, 13,899 at Dock Three and 4,368 at Dock Four.

There are 177 existing slips at the main marina site. The projects would cover 134 of these and leave 43 uncovered.

There are a proposed 114 total slips at the annex site which would have 40 covered and 74 uncovered. Norfolk said this is a 50% reduction in covered slips at the annex site since the developers’ last proposal, which had 80.

Norfolk said they are not asking for a wetlands permit at the Annex site anymore since with the new designs it is not needed.

Norfolk said the marina owners have removed a total of 27,218 square feet of boathouses from the shoreline setback, a critical environmental area — 12,347 square feet at the main site and 14,871 square feet at the annex. With the new designs, the coverage from the boat docks has been rearranged to be out over deep water, where it has minimal impact on the environmentally sensitive shoreline.

Norfolk made his case that approving this project is the more environmentally friendly option.

The marina developers could have built docks on the original footprints of preexisting “nonconforming” boathouses without APA approval, since the land they are on is classified as a hamlet — the most lenient APA category — but since Damp wanted to expand and replace the boathouses with new floating dock structures and increase the overall number of boat slips, the project needed the APA’s go-ahead.

“If this variance is denied, the applicant could reconstruct 27,218 square feet of preexisting, non-conforming covered docks and enclosed structures along the whole shoreline,” Norfolk said.

The developers could reconstruct these harmful docks without a variance. Norfolk said that their proposal is more environmentally friendly than that.

The APA found that the marina expansion would have a more positive impact on the environment than rebuilding the preexisting “nonconforming” marina without APA review. The Supreme Court agreed.

Damp and Norfolk said the project also has several environmental benefits. The marina owners have removed 29,778 square feet of preexisting structures which were dilapidated, falling into the water and sitting right on the shoreline, where they affected wetlands.

They say they have taken efforts to protect the shoreline by controlling erosion, stormwater, invasive species, septic and light pollution. Damp said that twice a season, they remove loads of the milfoil invasive species from the lakeshore, truckloads so far.

“I must note that Saranac Lake Marina is the only lakeshore owner that has invested thousands of dollars annually to fight the invasive species on Lower Saranac over the last three years,” Damp said. “We hope the other neighbors in Ampersand Bay will join us in the fight.”

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Public comment

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Several speakers identified themselves as longtime customers of the marina, or even the old marina, whose enjoyment of the lake is reliant on the docks and whose boats’ longevity rely on being covered.

Barry Brogan, a marina customer for 24 years, said it supplies the only access for middle-income people to leave their boats docked at the lake. Both of his children worked there and earned money for college.

“Without this marina in Lower Saranac Lake I simply would not have access to the lake,” Tom Ratigan said.

Colleen and Bob Farmer said the marina is a “vital” draw for people to live in Saranac Lake and is a reason for people to live here.

Braymer said this is a “self-created situation” created by changing the configuration of existing boat dock slips. She said the variance is not for the “minimum relief necessary.” The number of slips at the marina have been reduced over time, and she said they can be reduced even more.

Braymer pointed out that there were no APA board members in the meeting.

“The court gave the APA a second chance to precede its decision on the marina with a carrying capacity study,” Jorling said, but the APA has not done that. He said the courts will likely not like that.

“It appears staff has usurped the authority of the board,” Jorling said, alleging that APA staff gave the marina developers assurance that they met standards for the project “behind closed doors.” Only the board can do that, he said.

The Supreme Court’s ruling chastised the state Department of Environmental Conservation for not conducting a carrying capacity study before issuing the permit. The state did not require a study in this case, which has been controversial. While the court did say this was a “wholly unexplained and, indeed, inexplicable,” failure on the state’s part, it did not rule on this issue, saying it was not relevant to this specific lawsuit.

Colleen Farmer contended that the court never set a time period to study the carrying capacity, and is only a “proposed action.”

Alan Latourelle, a marina employee for 10 years, said from his perspective, more slips have not increased the use of the lake significantly. He said he should know. He touts being out there 100 days a year because he likes to waterski.

Comments on this project emailed to RPcomments@apa.ny.gov will be part of the record sent to the APA board.