Shorefront Owner Access Rights to Sacandaga Threatened
If something is there long enough, the environmentalists try
to lock it up as precious and too good for enjoyment by property
owners. In this case, the offense is that shorefront houses and
docks are visible to boaters on the Sacandaga reservoir, which
is now known as Great Sacandaga Lake. Never mind that the reservoir
was built by flooding local communities for the very practical
purpose of protecting Albany, Troy, and other downstream cities
along the Hudson River from recurrent, devastating floods. Granted,
it is a beautiful lake. But this is why ownership of an access
permit is such a large part of the market value of real estate
adjacent to the Sacandaga. Suffice it to say, the Hudson River
Black River Regulating District, which governs the access permits,
socked the landowners with harsh increases in permit fees a few
years ago, backed off, and hit again this year. In addition, the
agency decided to stop issuing permits to landowners whose property
is on the other side of the shorefront road and to allow public
access to the lake at widespread locations that threaten the exclusivity
of the shorefront along these stretches where private homes exist.
For now, after a big hullabaloo, the governor directed the agency
to back off again during June, but all these property owners who
derive their home values from the access permits, as well as other
local taxpayers whose taxes are reduced because of the high assessments
of permit holders, should pay heed: The property owners need a
better system of statutory rights to their access permits with
the pricing method clarified even further than the intention already
expressed by the statute. - Carol W. LaGrasse
| Back to: | |||
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|||
