by Sydney Emerson
LAKE PLACID — The interim board of an as-yet-unnamed Lake Placid housing cooperative fielded questions from a standing room only crowd at the Mirror Lake Beach House on Sunday afternoon.
The board’s goal for the meeting was to recruit more members for the co-op. With its current seven member households, the co-op needs 18 more households on board to reach its goal of 25 households. While potential members were in attendance, neighbors of the 100-acre plot where the co-op is slated to be built filled the room with questions and concerns about its impact on the character of the neighborhood and potential disruption of traffic.
Nonprofits Adirondack North Country Association and Cooperative Development Institute, which helped Jay-based company Ward Lumber transition to a cooperative model in 2021, have been helping the co-op board navigate the project. ANCA was the recipient of the land donation 18 months ago.
The co-op does not yet have a site plan that includes an amount or density of housing, though board president David Genito said that the co-op is shooting for 25 households. The board is currently waiting on the results of a boundary survey, which they should have in the next few weeks, before moving forward with a plan. The site is partially zoned as wetland, hamlet and low-density use by the Adirondack Park Agency. The homes would only be built on the 12-acre part zoned as hamlet, while the low-density use and wetland areas would be preserved as “forever wild,” as per the wishes of the anonymous donor of the land. The location and amount of access points are also undetermined.
Read the full article in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.
Photo by Sydney Emerson, Adirondack Daily Enterprise.