LAKE PLACID — The North Elba Town Council voted on Wednesday to deny a request to rezone a tract of land on George and Bliss Lane into a Planned Development District. If approved, the rezoning would’ve paved the way for the construction of new condos.

All board members voted to deny the rezoning request from Lake Placid Marina Corp. LLC, except for Emily Kilburn Politi, who abstained from the vote. Kilburn Politi said that she abstained from the vote due to her family’s ties to marinas. She said that none of the marinas on Lake Placid are correctly zoned and she believes that the zoning of marinas will become important as North Elba examines its land-use codes.

“There were a myriad of reasons why different board members voted no,” town Supervisor Derek Doty said. “It is a very busy piece of property as it sits now. We were concerned about additional parking in there. The public, overwhelmingly, really didn’t want to lose sight of the water. We had concerns about storm water and infrastructure-type issues.”

Widespread public opposition also factored into the board’s decision.

“We took public comment through two extra town board meetings in addition to the public hearing, so certainly the vast majority of responses to us were in opposition,” Doty said.

Rich Kroes and Katrina Lussi Kroes of Lake Placid, through Lake Placid Marina Corp. LLC, first submitted the request to rezone the 3.69-acre tract of land located on George and Bliss Lane and Mirror Lake Drive on May 24. The tract included three parcels, all of which are zoned differently. The Kroes’ request would have changed the zoning of all three parcels to “Planned Development District,” giving them more flexible setback requirements, a taller maximum building height and the ability to build condominiums instead of single-family homes.

The Kroes wanted to build two condominium structures on the land — a larger structure with 18 units, located approximately where the building that houses Helping Hands Thrift Store currently sits, and a smaller structure along Mirror Lake Drive that would house six additional units. This condominium project conflicted with the tract’s current residential zoning, which necessitated the rezoning request.

Doty said that the town board recently received a “last-minute offer for a different configuration of condo units,” but the proposed project “had no bearing on our giving a planned development status to the property.”

The North Elba-Lake Placid Joint Review Board voted 6-1 in August to recommend that the town board move forward with the rezoning — with some caveats. Two of the three parcels are in North Elba, which means the town board needed vote to rezone the land. The third parcel, which is significantly smaller, sits in the village of Lake Placid. Lake Placid Mayor Art Devlin told the Enterprise on Oct. 5 that the village board intends to wait until after the town council has made their decision to put the rezoning discussion on their agenda.