Adler drops Feagles Lake development project

Move follows letter from Tusten Planning Board

By FRITZ MAYER

NARROWSBURG, NY —“I’m not going to bang my head against the wall.” That’s how developer Steven Adler described his decision to drop his plans to develop a 400-unit conservation development on 380 acres of land surrounding Feagles Lake, just east of Narrowsburg along Route 97.

In a phone interview on November 16, Adler said he had recently received a letter from the Tusten planning board, which unanimously recommended that the Tusten town board not consider changing the town’s zoning laws to permit the development to go forward. Adler said the tone of the letter suggested that the board “…wanted to say emphatically that they want nothing to do with this.”

Adler further said that he had hoped to open a dialogue with officials on the planning board or the town board but the dialogue never got going. Because the plan was very ambitious, he said, “I think it overwhelmed them.”

Tusten supervisor Ben Johnson said the planning board made the recommendation not to change the laws based on the information presented by Adler and his partner, which was only a conceptual plan and lacked important details.

Johnson said the town engineer had asked Adler to address 18 questions and points of concern regarding the plan, which included identification of wetlands, an environmental impact statement, an evaluation of the dam, analysis of the impact on the town water and sewer system if the development were to tie into it and other technical matters. Johnson said the developer never addressed the questions.

Johnson said there were no specific objections to the plan, because the plan never went far enough to bring specific objections or complaints.

Planning board chairman Ed Jackson said much the same thing. He said the board’s recommendation not to change the zoning law was based on the information available to the board, which was not a complete plan.

Adler said as a possible next step, he had been hoping to arrange a meeting that would include staffers from the Sullivan County planning department, who would have been instrumental in assisting the town in moving forward with the development, which he projected could have meant up to $140 million in real estate sales and a sizable increase in taxes to the town.

Now, he said, he will probably sell the parcel, but he may not be successful in the short term because of the soft real-estate market.