Connie Landon casts a ballot at the St. Armand Town Hall on Tuesday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

LAKE PLACID — Prop 1, the proposal to amend the state Constitution, bringing the winter sports complex at Mount Van Hoevenberg into compliance with the law, appears to have just barely passed, according to incomplete and unofficial election night vote totals.

As of 4:20 a.m. Wednesday, all but 60 of the 13,267 election districts across the state were reporting their votes, 99.5% of the total. A stubborn few were still yet to be accounted for on the state Board of Elections website.

With more than 4.1 million New Yorkers weighing in, the incomplete vote count showed 45.57% supporting the amendment, 42.10% opposing it, 12.29% just leaving it blank and 0.04% voiding their vote.

The “yes” to “no” partial-total was at 1,894,597 to 1,750,078, with around half a million skipping the proposition.

If the proposition has indeed passed, some language is added to the state Constitution and 2,500 acres of land is added to the Forest Preserve. If the amendment didn’t pass, environmental advocates said it would create a “difficult situation.”

“Having things that violate the constitution just sitting on the Forest Preserve is not ideal,” Protect the Adirondacks Executive Director Claudia Braymer said in mid-October.

Olympic Regional Development Authority Board Chair Joe Martens said it would be a “setback” for ORDA and would stop them from maintaining or improving the parking lots and trails in the area.

The vote, though mostly only impacting the Mount Van Hoevenberg complex, was taken by voters statewide, since it amends the state Constitution.

To amend Article 14 of the state Constitution like this takes a long process. Both houses of the state legislature needed to pass the proposed amendment in two consecutive legislative sessions. The proposed amendment passed in the 2023-24 session, and then again in June of this year.

On Tuesday, it needed a simple majority to be ratified.

Four counties voted “no” more than they voted “yes” — all downstate, in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Staten Island leaned most heavily against the proposition, with 64% of voters opposing it.

Tompkins County, which contains Ithaca, voted “yes” the strongest, with 71% of voters approving of the amendment.

The vote was pretty close in many counties. Orleans County was split 50/50. Three counties approved the amendment by 51%, two with 53% and four with 54%.

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Explaining the proposition

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Environmental advocates were concerned the amendment wouldn’t pass because people wouldn’t understand it.

Adirondack Council Communications Director John Sheehan said the language of the amendment on the ballot was “dense,” to put it lightly. Braymer said most people thought the amendment would allow the construction of new facilities before she explained it to them.

Sheehan and Braymer were two of the advocates who were talking to news outlets around the state and giving talks at voter group functions urging for its passage.

They said it would resolve past Forest Preserve constitutional violations at the sports complex near Lake Placid, ensuring the integrity of the land protections and allowing the state to continue holding sporting events there.

To read more about the proposal and environmental outreach, go to tinyurl.com/mwjzerrj.

For years, the state Olympic Regional Development Authority has built out the facilities at the 1,039-acre Mount Van Hoevenberg sports complex it owns and operates — including an Olympic bobsled, skeleton and luge track, and Nordic skiing and biathlon trails.

But some of this work — including tree cutting and building construction — has extended into a constitutionally protected Forest Preserve. Some buildings, roads and parking lots straddle the town-state boundary, and there has been tree cutting on the Forest Preserve beyond what is allowed.

“It really should have happened the other way around,” Braymer said. “We should have had the amendment get passed (first).”

She said the state agency pushed forward to get ready to host the 2023 FISU Winter World University Games. While making updates to its Mount Van Hoevenberg unit management plan in the run-up to the Games, people realized that some of the developments made since the 1980s already crossed over from town-owned land and extended onto the state Forest Preserve.

The biathlon stadium crosses into the Forest Preserve and there are parking lots on state-owned land. The bobsled run at the complex is all on town land, so it’s not a problem.

The solution the state settled on is to authorize the development on these 323 acres around the biathlon stadium, though Article 14 — the “forever wild” clause of the state Constitution — and offset with more land in the park being added to the Forest Preserve.

It places restrictions on ORDA for future development at the site and ensures future development is within those restrictions.

“It restricts development at Mount Van Hoevenberg to no more than 323 acres of land for the explicit purpose of Nordic skiing and biathlon trails and related facilities,” Braymer said.

The authorization of this development on these 323 acres from the Forest Preserve would be offset by the purchase of 2,500 acres of land somewhere in the Adirondacks to add to the Forest Preserve, likely in Essex County.

Martens said the state Department of Environmental Conservation will also take 200 acres of existing intensive use area from a remote part of the complex — between a trail and the state wilderness area in the north portion of the land — and reclassify it as wilderness land to add to the Forest Preserve. This is not part of the amendment, but would be done if the amendment passes, he said.

The amendment was crafted by state employees, legislators, green groups and ORDA itself.

Ever since Mount Van Hoevenberg’s first Unit Management Plan was created in 1986, nearly every UMP since has noted the need to address the “forever wild” status of the state lands there.

While state-owned ski areas at Whiteface Mountain, Gore Mountain and Belleayre Mountain each have Article 14 amendments authorizing their use, there’s never been a constitutional amendment to explicitly authorize the Mount Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex. This amendment would create an authorization similar to these ski areas.

The sports complex was first developed in 1929 with the creation of a bobsled run that was later used in the 1932 Olympics.

An enabling legislation also passed both houses. This bill makes sure the amendment is implemented correctly. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed this bill last week.

It details what the land at the sports complex can and cannot be used for. Banned uses include hotels, condominiums, zip lines, swimming pools, tennis courts, all-terrain vehicle use or paths for the public and “other structures and improvements which are not directly related to and necessary for operation, maintenance and public use of the sports complex; or any structure located at or above an elevation of 2,200 feet above sea level used for the sale of any goods, services, merchandise, food or beverage.”

Former North Country Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Chateaugay Lake, and downstate Sen. Pete Harckham, D-South Salem, introduced the Constitutional Amendment (S.5227/A.7454) and the enabling legislation (S.6888/A.3628) in their respective houses. North Country state Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, co-sponsored the senate legislation.