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Questions for Seggos on huts

The op-ed piece “DEC wants to help more NYers experience the outdoors” on July 4 by Basil Seggos, the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation raises more questions that it answers.

First, I would like to congratulate the commissioner for penning this op-ed. The commissioner has shown a preference for secrecy and withholding information — just look at the DEC’s silence around the classification of the Boreas Ponds, a decision the Cuomo administration said would be made in early 2017. It’s July, and we have only silence.

The op-ed was light on details, and Commissioner Seggos raised many more questions that he answered. While I think many embrace the central concept of the Hamlets to Huts initiative, especially where people can hike from hamlet to hamlet and stay in private existing lodging facilities, many are also concerned about the implications for the “forever wild” Forest Preserve. “Huts,” “primitive platform tents” or “eco-lodges” that the commissioner envisions are not allowed for public use on the Forest Preserve. While the commissioner assured us that these new buildings on the Forest Preserve would be “primitive in nature, temporary and self-serviced,” he never discussed their legality.

In many ways the hut-to-hut concept sounds a lot like the “closed cabin” proposal of the 1930s. That proposal to build a series of “warming huts” and “cabins” across the Forest Preserve was voted down by the public in 1932. Any new proposal for public buildings on the Forest Preserve should similarly be in the form of a constitutional amendment and not undertaken through administrative action. The decision to change management of the Forest Preserve to allow cabins for public use is a big one and the framers of the forever wild provision in the New York State Constitution reserved the decision-making authority on such big issues for the people, not for bureaucrats. On a decision like this one, the people should make the decision on the people’s land.

The legal issues are serious, and the commissioner should treat them so. Has the DEC sought an official opinion from New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on building huts for public use on the Forest Preserve? Does the DEC commissioner plan to do so? Has the DEC developed its own legal analysis on this matter? Will the DEC share its legal analysis with the public? When will the DEC inform the public about what “self service” and “full service” lodging entails? When will the DEC release a formal plan with exact locations, structure types, costs, and building schedule? Does the DEC believe a constitutional amendment is necessary? If not, why not?

Without providing any important legal analysis, details or plans, the commissioner is already out making big promises. He says confidently that his hut-to-hut plan can create or support 303 jobs alone in the five towns on North Hudson, Minerva, Newcomb, Long Lake and Indian Lake. That’s a lot of jobs in those communities. The DEC should release its specific plan for just how it proposes to do this.

While the commissioner is dreaming of an expansive hut-to-hut system across the Forest Preserve, perhaps he should give some thought to the futures, and expenses, of buildings that are currently owned by the state that exist now on the Forest Preserve without plans or purposes. These include the log cabin at Duck Hole, Debar Lodge, the old cabin at the Four Corners at Boreas Ponds and the old farmhouse at the Outer Gooley Club on the Hudson River. In all cases, the DEC has not released any plans for how these buildings comply with Article 14, Section 1 of the New York State Constitution or how the DEC plans to use these buildings, their public function or the costs involved.

Last, Commissioner Seggos claims that there is “misinformation” being spread about the hut-to-hut initiative. The best thing that the commissioner could do is to answer all the questions above and produce detailed plans and legal analysis about his highly questionable and legally dubious proposal, rather than pen op-eds.

Commissioner Seggos, we eagerly look forward to your answers to the questions above and to the release of more information by your agency on huts for public use on the Forest Preserve.

Peter Bauer is the executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, based in Lake George.

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