Adirondack Park Agency
Encyclopedia
The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) was created in 1971 by New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
Governor Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
as a governmental agency that performs long-range planning for the future of the Adirondack Park. It oversees development plans of private land-owners as well as activities within the Adirondack Forest Preserve. Development by private owners must be reviewed to determine if their plan is compatible with the park. The agency is headquartered in Ray Brook, New York
Ray Brook, New York
Ray Brook is a hamlet in New York State, USA located on NY 86 between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid in the Town of North Elba in Essex County. It is the site of the Adirondack Park Agency, the District 5 office of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Federal...
.
History
From its inception in 1892, the six million acre (24,000 km²) Adirondack Park, which is larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand CanyonGrand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...
, Great Smoky
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a United States National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between Tennessee and North...
, and Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park is a national park in the U.S. state of Florida that protects the southern 25 percent of the original Everglades. It is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and is visited on average by one million people each year. It is the third-largest...
s combined, has been a battleground between those who would preserve wilderness and proponents of the development rights of property owners. The Adirondack Park Agency was created in an attempt to settle many of these longstanding issues. It has been controversial from the outset.
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
map and land use plan
Land use planning
Land-use planning is the term used for a branch of public policy encompassing various disciplines which seek to order and regulate land use in an efficient and ethical way, thus preventing land-use conflicts. Governments use land-use planning to manage the development of land within their...
.
The land use plan, in particular, ignited a storm of controversy. The idea of non-residents from Albany and New York City dictating to residents of the park what they could and could not do with their own land caused a great deal of resentment among the traditionally independent-minded "Adirondackers". Anonymous phone calls threatened to burn the homes of APA members, truckloads of manure were dumped on agency land, a man was caught in the act of attempting to burn the new agency headquarters; one town even voted to secede from the park. While most park residents were opponents of the APA, some, notably Clarence Petty
Clarence Petty
Clarence Adelbert Petty was a supervising forest ranger in the Adirondack Forest Preserve, conservationist, and avid outdoorsman well-known for his advocacy of protection of the Adirondack Park....
, supported it.
Initially, the APA handled matters poorly, and sentiment ran strongly against it. Then, in 1972, the Horizon Corporation of Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
purchased 24000 acres (97.1 km²) within the park and announced plans to build 10,000 new homes, along with golf courses, and ski areas. Other plans for 4,000 homes on 18000 acres (72.8 km²) were under development. Suddenly the Park Agency's Land Use Plan looked much more reasonable to many more people, and the continued existence of the Agency assured.
The work of the APA remains controversial, however, with many of its actions drawing lawsuits from one side or the other. Recent issues have revolved around cell phone towers along the Northway and on Lake George
Lake George (New York)
Lake George, nicknamed the Queen of American Lakes, is a long, narrow oligotrophic lake draining northwards into Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River Drainage basin located at the southeast base of the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York, U.S.A.. It lies within the upper region of the...
, all-terrain vehicle
All-terrain vehicle
An all-terrain vehicle , also known as a quad, quad bike, three wheeler, or four wheeler, is defined by the American National Standards Institute as a vehicle that travels on low pressure tires, with a seat that is straddled by the operator, along with handlebars for steering control...
and snowmobile
Snowmobile
A snowmobile, also known in some places as a snowmachine, or sled,is a land vehicle for winter travel on snow. Designed to be operated on snow and ice, they require no road or trail. Design variations enable some machines to operate in deep snow or forests; most are used on open terrain, including...
access to park lands, floating camps and/or houseboats, and, as always, subdivisions. A number of organizations continue to monitor its actions, including the Adirondack Council, the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, the Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks and the Adirondack Land Trust.
Sources
- Angus, Christopher, The Extraordinary Adirondack Journey of Clarence Petty, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8156-0741-5.
- McMartin, Barbara, Perspectives on the Adirondacks, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8156-0742-3
- Zinser, Charles I., Economic Impact of the Adirondack Private Land Use and Development Plan, State University of New York Press, 1980. ISBN 978-0-87395-399-3.