By KIM SMITH DEDAM
LAKE PLACID -- Lawmakers are watching the Nature Conservancy disposition strategy with great interest in how the green group proposes to sell some of it to the state.
Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward (R-Willsboro) has called for a halt to state land purchases until state tax payment disbursement policies are vetted through appeals in a recent court decision.
The Dillenburg case, currently on appeal, ordered the state to stop paying all land tax payments and payments-in-lieu-of-taxes.
The Supreme Court judge also issued a stay on the order, until the matter is reviewed in appellate court.
The legal breach, ironically, has brought together sides often on opposite ends of the table over conservation land purchases.
Adirondack Chapter of the Nature Conservancy Executive Director Michael Carr doesn't believe the tax case, born in Chautauqua County, has any merit in the Adirondacks. The legal structure of the Adirondack Park Act requires two consecutive legislative decisions to amend the constitution for any change in land use.
The state has too much at stake to lose inside the blue line in a tax case.
"There are 18 million New Yorkers proud of the forest preserve," Carr said. "We fully support continued state tax payments to municipalities in the Adirondack Park, so not to cause unnecessary strain on the residents of the park."
Land sold to the state in the Nature Conservancy's strategy would revert to a higher tax rate, in most instances, Carr added, as property moved out of 480-480s agreements to regular taxable status.
For their part, Newcomb Supervisor George Canon and North Hudson Supervisor Bob Dobie support a moratorium on state land purchases while the Attorney General's office appeals the state tax payment decision.
"I'm totally in agreement with it," Canon said. "Things have a way of getting screwed up sometimes."
Sayward said lawmakers from the Adirondacks and Catskills are looking to meet with environmental groups and the Attorney General's office before the end of January to come up with a type of hold-harmless clause for the state lands.
"But environmental groups should honor the moratorium until we get this thing resolved. It's the very least they can do," she said.
"Environmental groups and the Nature Conservancy are as interested as we are in putting this court case to rest."
Any final plan for conveyance of some of the 161,000 former Finch, Pruyn & Co. acres of park land, as a private sale, would not go before any public hearing or require public input.
Still lawmakers and town officials would weigh in on the plan if they see it as detrimental to their town tax base.
"Towns have an option to negate stand land purchases if the money is coming from the Environmental Protection Fund," Canon said.
They can contest sales that would move land off the tax rolls.
While the Nature Conservancy completes its disposition strategy, the environmental group is paying $1.1 million in taxes annually on the former Finch, Pruyn land.
kdedam@pressrepublican.com
