From left are Keith McKeever, Adirondack Park Agency public information officer, and Keene town Supervisor Joe Pete Wilson. (Provided photo — Naj Wikoff)

In 1971, the Adirondack Park Agency was established by the New York State Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. In 1972, the APA prepared the State Land Master Plan, and it was signed into law, and it was followed by the Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan in 1973.

To acknowledge this 50th anniversary, the Adirondack History Museum in Elizabethtown hosted a community discussion — “Where do we go here from here” — on Thursday, July 27. Museum trustee Peter Slocum of Keene opened the debate, and the event featured presentations by APA Public Information Officer Keith McKeever, filling in for APA Executive Director Barbara Rice, and Gerald (Jerry) Delaney, executive director of the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board. About 60 people attended.

In his opening remarks, Slocum noted that as one-time president of the museum, Richard Lawrence of Elizabethtown was not only the founding chairman of the APA but had proposed the creation of such an agency and lobbied the legislature to that end. Therefore, he said, the museum was especially pleased to host the forum.

In contrast to the initial community forums about the APA, this session was anything but contentious, with no screaming, no threats, but rather a thoughtful dialogue even though significant differences of opinion were shared. One overriding consensus is that climate change is driving some very different challenges for life in the park than existed 50 years ago, which impacts a question posed to both presenters: Should the APA address the housing crisis?

In 1968, Gov. Rockefeller established a commission to review the status of private and public lands in the park, a commission in many respects developed in response to an effort to establish a national park in the Adirondacks along with increased private development pressures following the opening of the Adirondack Northway. The commission recommended the creation of an Adirondack Park Agency with a goal of establishing long-range land use plans for all lands and waterways within the park’s boundary, known as the Blue Line.

Pete Nelson of Keene with Gerald (Jerry) Delaney, executive director of the Adirondack Local Government Review Board (Provided photo — Naj Wikoff)

The State Land Master Plan classified public lands into five major categories: Canoe, Intensive use, Primitive, Wilderness and Wild Forest.

The Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan classified all private lands into six categories: Hamlet, Industrial Use, Low Intensity, Moderate Intensity, Resource Management and Rural Use. The intent was foster future growth within existing communities.

The Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board was established to provide the APA insights and feedback from local county boards of electors to help and assist the agency in fulfilling its functions. The Review Board comprises 12 members representing a county wholly or partially within the Blue Line. The board’s executive director attends all APA board meetings, has a seat at the table, and though not able to vote, can provide advice and feedback on any issue before the board. Delaney served as chair of the Review Board from about 2012 until September 2018, when he was hired as executive director.

McKeever grew up in a rural environment near Albany in Rensselaer County, which since has been turned into suburban housing and shopping as the region expanded sans limits on growth; a change that inspired him find work protecting open spaces and a career at the APA.

McKeever summarized the many challenges and growing pains the agency and the Adirondack communities went through over the years. He felt that planning through the agency is now accepted law and that the relationships between the APA and the communities have improved.

McKeever feels that the biggest block to addressing the housing crisis, aside from the shortage of appropriate land to build on, is the shortage of community-based septic systems as multi-use facilities, the most affordable way of meeting housing needs, cannot be built using self-contained septic tanks and leach fields. The challenge is that many small communities do not have the population base to build or maintain such systems; therefore, the agency and the communities must work together to develop creative solutions for addressing wastewater while recognizing differing communities will require different approaches.

“This region is very lovely, but we don’t have the infrastructure for growth,” said McKeever. “I live in Wilmington. We have no septic. We have Whiteface Mountain and Gore. They pull in 250,000 visitors, and there is no wastewater system there. If we want housing and to create more jobs, we need to address wastewater; it’s not sexy, it’s not easy, and putting in systems is very intrusive, but it’s necessary for growth. If we can work together, we can pull it off.”

Delaney agreed that sewer and water are significant issues for the park. Still, local communities don’t want the APA leading that effort because they do not have to speak with and interact with the users. They are not the ones who have to raise the taxes, justify the program and its cost, explain why it has to be done, and they are not the ones that get the pushback on projects dictated to them by state and federal regulators.

“Local government absolutely welcomes the assistance of the Adirondack Park Agency in moving forward on this; we think it’s a good idea, but since the 1980s, when the EPA started demanding that we have to have drilled wells and small water systems, they’ve become increasing untenable,” said Delaney. “What was created in 1985 as a system that was to be compliant up to today and carry us into the future is no longer compliant. It’s costly. My town of Saranac has two water districts with under 50 users. There are near poverty levels in both of those districts. It’s extremely hard to keep those districts up to federal standards.”

Delaney said the cost of such standards can’t be covered through user fees or raising local taxes and that an attempt to do so will and is driving people into poverty or out of the region. He said the state and federal governments can’t be trusted as long-term partners. He gave an example of the state building prisons to generate employment, which they did, but now the state is closing prisons and doing nothing to replace those jobs.

Delaney said climate change is already driving people’s desires to move here from the Southwest and that COVID ramped up that movement resulting in a loss of housing and increased costs. Furthermore, he believes soon people from South America will come to fill unfilled local jobs. Delaney said his concern is for the little guy, for people of modest means, and for doing everything he can to ensure they can live and thrive in the region. Delaney said he is all for creative thinking and partnerships but that local government must have an equal voice in the planning and that any action must be sustainable. He noted that in his experience, any system installed must be repaired before the loans are paid off.

(Naj Wikoff lives in Keene Valley. He has been covering events for the Lake Placid News for more than 15 years.)