Though the planning boards in Shandaken, N.Y., and Middletown, N.Y., gave the $365 million project the green light last week, a lawsuit could slow the development of the resort. The proposed property will be comprised of the Highmount Spa and Resort, and the Wildacres Resort, which will include 250 hotel units, 163 detached lodging units, and an 18-hole golf course.
The approval process is complete for The Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park, but a lawsuit against the state is holding up the start of construction, the Kingston, N.Y., Daily Freeman reported.
With little fanfare, the planning boards in Shandaken, N.Y., and Middletown, N.Y., last week gave the final green lights needed for the $365 million project to be built. The resort will straddle the border between the two towns but sit mostly in Shandaken, the Daily Freeman reported.
“This action by the two boards now concludes a tortuous 16-year odyssey leading up to this phase of the project’s development,” said Gary Gailes, the spokesman for developer Crossroads Ventures.
But one hurdle remains: a lawsuit filed by the Catskill Heritage Alliance and neighbors of the project site. The suit, filed against the state Department of Environmental Conservation over its approval of the project last year, “needs to be resolved before construction can begin,” Gailes said.
“It’s not that the lawsuit has any realistic chance of succeeding or that it delays the permitting process, but it would be difficult to secure project financing if any ongoing litigation hasn’t been resolved,” Gailes said. “One would hope that given the overwhelming support the project has received from the two town planning boards, who labored for nearly two years reviewing the merits of this project, that those individuals who had the most concerns about the project would conclude that every reasonable effort has been made to address those concerns.”
The neighbors in the lawsuit are the Korman, Gould and Rainone families, the Daily Freeman reported.
Arguably the most reviewed project in state history, the resort plan first was made public in 1999 in the same town meeting hall where the Shandaken Planning Board voted its approval last Wednesday. Back then it was standing room only. Last week, only a few people were present, and most were associated with the project. The resort is to occupy 215 acres of a 739-acre site and comprise two distinct components: the Highmount Spa and Resort and the Wildacres Resort, the Daily Freeman reported.
Wildacres, on the eastern side of the project site, is to include 250 hotel units in the central facility and 163 detached lodging units, as well as an 18-hole golf course. The Highmount Spa and Resort, on the western side, is to include 173 units in a central facility and 43 detached lodging units. The existing buildings at the base of the former Highmount Ski Area will be reused as the Highmount Spa and Resort’s Wilderness Activity Center, the Daily Freeman reported.
Despite the lawsuit delaying construction, Gailes and supporters of the project are celebrating last week’s approvals, the Daily Freeman reported.
“Bottom line is that the project has made a major move forward, lawsuit not withstanding, and it has become ever more clear that after 16 years of extensive review and study, all of the environmental issues surrounding the project have now been thoroughly addressed,” Gailes said. “Hopefully, in the weeks and months ahead, the remaining legal obstacles to the project can be successfully resolved and we can all look forward to a project, when completed, that can better secure the economic future for everyone living here in the central Catskills.”
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