Should New York State Continue to Purchase Land? 17 comments
The Nature Conservancy recently purchased Follensby Park, which includes Follensby Pond, site of the historic “Philosopher’s Camp.” The 14,000-acre park lies within the towns of Tupper Lake, New York and Harrietstown, and encompasses 10 miles of shoreline along the Raquette River.
The Nature Conservancy anticipates that the State of New York will purchase the land and add it to the Forest Preserve.
New York State has an Environmental Protection Fund, with money designated for purchases like this. But, in these tough economic times with a record budget deficit, how much can the state afford to pay? How much land is enough state land?
New York State’s desire to protect land is admirable.
Under state ownership, Follensby Park would remain free of development. Motorboat use on that section of the Raquette River might be banned, keeping those waters quiet for paddlers and wildlife. This legendary parcel of land would remain “forever wild” and open for all to enjoy.
In the 1980s efforts to reintroduce the Bald Eagle to the Adirondacks were based at Follensby. There are currently 12 nesting pairs.
Local schools and towns could benefit from an increase in taxes collected if the State did acquire the property.
Follensby Park has been a steady source of income for several local logging contractors in the past. If the state does not designate some of the park as easement land, there will be no more selective logging on the property. This could affect the local economy and some businessmen.
The park is also home to several privately leased hunting camps. These leases, along with their traditions and history, would be abolished if the State purchased the property. A ban on motorized boats would also affect many people who currently enjoy boating along the Raquette River.
Tell us what you think: Should New York State acquire Follensby Park? Should the Forest Preserve continue to grow in this period of economic downturn?
New York taxes are very destructive in relation to NYS private land management.
I worked as a scientist for NYS DEC and the APA. LAND TAXES are killing the landowners of this state. Do not think NYS land ownership means that the land is managed better. My son and I are members of the NYS Forest Practice Board. If you could see what town and school tax do to land owners in terms of causing timber exploitation you would be amazed! One of our biggest threats is climate change in relation to invasive species! I am in the phone book and encourage anyone who has bonafide input to call me! God Bless the Adirondacks!
We need more land to preseve our wild life. The Forest Preserve should continue to grow.
the adirondacks should be protected an more land added to it whenever possible.
I’ve lived in the park all my life make my living telling Adirondack Stories and doing PR and Tourism, Writing a column called “Growing up Adirondack”, I have a few issues with lack of Stewardship and current State Lands… They have more than enough allready, If they consider not paying taxes on their holdings I for one think we would do well as each town and village to forclose on State land equalling the amount of missed taxes and then we could subdivide selling a fair price to year round working folks and bring some of our young people back home.
Thanks
In the land of the free and the home of the brave - we are slowly giving control of our lives over to the state - so many people have come to this county looking to escape this type of government for this very reason. There is no free ride, if we except help in form of government (tax breaks, grants, welfare, etc.) that old saying if you lay with dogs - don’t complain if you get fleas. We talk about the state as if we get benefits from the tax dollar - Hello - whom is the person paying this tax dollar. The state has more land than they are able to maintain and care for. This forever wild thought is so far off base it is crazy. If we have a garden - how do we care for it? If we don’t care for it what happens? I would like to see every person that is able to - get of the road and to hike back into the woods 5 miles, after climbing through blow downs, under brush, etc. for a time - tell me that we are caring for our land. Push your selves away from the desk – and but there thoughts into shoe leather. Nature will reclaim the land one way or the other. What a waste in this economic time. We are very poor stewards – the answer dose not lye in more government control or ownership, but in us examining our lives. John F Kennedy stated “Ask not what your county can do for you, but ask what you can do for your county”. Also a wise woman told me this “So goes the home, so goes the church, so goes the school, so goes the nation” do we see the pattern. This lady was my grandmother who raised her family thought the great depression. She had 14 children -7 died before the age of 3. I sure the ideal of purchasing state land was not on the top of her list of priorities.
No more buying,to mush has been bought as is,just restrict the growth.
I was born and raised in the adirondacks.
since then the state has acquired almost double the land they owned in 1939.
My hometown of Indian Lake has suffered a loss of citizens and revenue due to the states land grabbing.
I am totally against the state taking any more land.
Thanks for the oppurrunity to air my feelings.Bill
NO! Every land grab is made claiming it is for the people, but more and more restriction exclude more people, except those that are well off or connected. The state does a poor job of caring for what it has now. Rules and limits are necessary but the people that make their living from the land such as farmers and forest industries are better stewards than the State. Most of the “enlightened guidance” that we get from down state is from people that know very little about living here. Wearing LL Bean clothes does not make you an environmentalist.
No! The state can’t even take care of what it has. The APA would want you to believe so, in fact it would cause more taxes to maintain the extra land. Let development come in. The state and APA doen’t need to own everything!
This is the right time to be buying land while prices are low. All across the country people are grateful for what public land there is. Here in NY we have opportunities that already have been lost elsewhere.
Yes!! Buy all the land you can so people don’t destroy the land with their big house or resorts.Keep what is there but stop all the new. Once we kill it, it’s never coming back. The Adirondacks are a beautiful land scape save as much as we can.
Yes!! What ever happened to property rights? If the owner of the property wants to sell it to the State, and if its in the Open Space Plan (which is drafted by representatives from each county who are not exactly all environmentalists) nobody should have any reason to protest. The Nature Conservancy has the right to end the leases when they expire and stop logging this area. The difference is that it would be open to the public if it were State land. Also, it is likely that the prior owner has tax breaks for forest management, if so it is likely that the Town would get more taxes than if this property was privately held. As for people saying that the increase in the amount of State land is reducing the population of our small towns, all you have to do is look at the small Towns outside of the park, they are shrinking too. The only difference between small towns outside of the park and inside of the park is that we have a tourism economy because of the Forest Preserve.
Dear God yes, buy the land! There is plenty of room for growth and industrialization in areas of the state that are already developed.
There is so little real wilderness areas left in the East and the Adirondacks is the largest, this side of the Mississippi.
These tracts should be bought from willing sellers for the people of New York,
if not they will be subdivided and developed and you may as well be living in a Syracuse suburb.
Get out of your house and go look around. Look out the window next time you fly over the East Coast. There ain’t a whole lot of big woods left. More needs to be done to preserve the big undeveloped parcels in the Adirondacks and Tug Hill, if you want to live in a new subdivision, move to New Jersey.
What a double edged sword. It’s good to further protect land for many obvious reasons, but when is enough, enough. The state owns enough land and further wants to diminish its contributions to local economies via tax dollars. I furthermore feel the state could manage the land it has much better. What is wrong with select harvesting timber on state land. Is it not proven that timber management is beneficial to the forest? Won’t it generate some income and put people to work? The state practices this in many other parts of the state, but not the ADK’s. Its time we get creative and modify our policies to meet the changing world; this includes helping locals who want to stay and enjoy the quality of life the ADK’s have to offer, but increasingly are having a harder time affording subsistence in this region.
I hope the state buys more land but I’d like to see more timber harvest in the ADK’s. The best thing the state can do for wildlife is to thin out trees from the forest. Select cutting would be good for wildlife, the forest and would create jobs.
and the land would remain wild.
Protect the land now while we can.Someday the US population will double and NY’s population will too and new industries might emerge around the state that’ll create new suburbs that might push into the ADK’s. And what’ll happen if high speed rail is introduced ? Save it while we can.
Ah!!! at last I found what I was looking for. Somtimes it takes so much effort to find even tiny useful piece of information.
Nice post. Thanks
I grew up in the Catskill park and the NYS and NYC purchasing of land has inflated not only the taxes but also the value of property when selling it. I am unable to move to where I grew up because of the cost of land. More state owned land is a bad thing