Found in violation, business owner protests Adirondack Park Agency’s enforcement process
By Gwendolyn Craig
A Long Lake business owner will pay a fine and remove his deck after the Adirondack Park Agency ruled he had built it illegally.
The APA fined George Carrothers $28,500 but suspended $27,000 if he removes the deck by Nov. 1 and pays $1,500. The agency found him in violation of the Adirondack Park Agency Act for building a deck within 50 feet of the mean high water mark of Jennings Pond without a variance. Carrothers, co-owner of boat rental and café business Another Paradise Cove, said he will abide by the APA’s order but plans to fight the decision in other ways.
UPDATE: Speaking last night at a Long Lake Town Board meeting, Carrothers said that public access to causeway will remain in place READ MORE
That is to say Carrothers plans to bar the public from accessing a causeway and island on Jennings Pond behind his Main Street property. The area has historically been used for launching the town’s fireworks displays and hosting a children’s fishing tournament, besides being a place for tourists and residents to walk. It was also a spot where snowmobilers could use a right-of-way.
“If government is going to come down on me, I’m not going to work with the government, no matter what the government is,” Carrothers said in an interview on Aug. 12. “I’m challenging them by communicating to the masses how out of touch the APA is with the needs of the Adirondack Park.”
“Understand, I don’t want to do any of this,” Carrothers added. “Everything was fine. Everyone was happy.”
Carrothers plans to close off the area after Labor Day. He hopes the public outcry will influence the APA to change its mind and change its enforcement process.
Long Lake Supervisor Clay Arsenault did not have much to say about Carrothers’ plans except that he was going to meet with him.
“At this time, the town attorney, town surveyor and my office are all researching the facts regarding the easements, property lines, and other agreements going back to 1933 when Jennings Pond dam was built creating Jennings Pond,” Arsenault wrote in an email.
Carrothers is a retired Dutchess County architect with experience renovating old mansions and building custom homes. He purchased the Main Street building, which used to be a snack bar and later a diner, and turned it over the years into a boat rental shop and bakery business. Originally Carrothers wanted to build a French provincial cottage on Jennings Pond, but APA rules and regulations hampered the process, and he decided to revamp the existing building instead.
With his architect’s eye, Carrothers described how his scalloped wood shakes on the building’s siding, new entryway and other design elements distract from the “the ugliest roofline you can have.” An added deck would serve as a ramp entryway to meet accessibility requirements and be a place for visitors and locals alike to sit and have coffee and pastries on the water.
The APA enforcement decision filed on July 30 came after an APA enforcement hearing at the board’s July meeting. The case dates back to 2019. Records show Carrothers originally proposed expanding the Main Street building, including the addition of a deck. Staff advised he would need a variance and in August 2018, Carrothers applied for one. In September 2018, staff asked for more information on the variance request, but Carrothers didn’t supply any.
In May 2019, staff received a complaint that Carrothers had built a deck. APA staff visited the site in June 2019, found the deck to be within the shoreline setback and issued a proposed settlement to Carrothers in September 2019 to remove the deck and pay a fine.
Carrothers, however, said after talking with APA staff before building the deck, he thought he no longer needed a variance. Carrothers originally wanted to build a much larger deck, but he said staff talked him into a smaller one. During that conversation, Carrothers said, an APA staff member had said that the smaller deck would be OK. He said the conversation was a negotiation so that he wouldn’t need a variance, otherwise, he added, he would have applied for a variance for his first-proposed larger deck.
Adirondack policy, in plain speak.
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Carrothers isn’t the only Adirondack Park homeowner to have this kind of miscommunication with APA staff in recent enforcement proceedings.
Joseph Cotazino Jr. had a similar complaint over a house and deck he built in the town of Wells. Cotazino’s home plans had been approved by all the necessary municipal parties but then the town warned him his house was so close to the road a snow plow might hit it.
Cotazino then asked APA for help as to where he could put his deck and house on his building lot. APA staff came out to the property and put stakes down where Cotazino could build his house and deck and not need a variance. Cotazino said he built his retirement home within the stakes, but APA staff said that he didn’t. APA fined him the same amount as Carrothers for building a deck within 50 feet of the mean high water mark of Lake Algonquin in the town of Wells. He also has been ordered to remove his deck.
There are many more things that make Carrothers angry about the APA’s enforcement decision, like how the APA won’t tell him who complained about his deck. Cotazino also had a neighbor file a complaint. Both complaints led to the enforcement proceedings.
Carrothers thinks the APA waited too long to issue him a violation, too. Staff came out to his property to look at the deck and then five months later mailed him a violation. In those five months Carrothers continued to invest in his new bakery with the idea that customers could sit out on his deck.
During the July APA board meeting, attorney Jennifer Hubbard said agency staff don’t issue violations on site. Enforcement committee chairman Art Lussi said “we tried that in the early days and there were gunshots, so that’s why we don’t do that anymore.”
That comment also shocked Carrothers.
“That to me is appalling that there’s a state agency that’s so out of touch with the community, so out of touch with the people that live in the Adirondack Park that they’ve created that level of animosity and that they know it,” Carrothers said. “Why wouldn’t they fix that?”
For now Carrothers plans to pay the $1,500. He balked at APA’s suggestion of picnic tables to replace his “architectural piece of work.”
“I don’t put picnic tables out in my yard, and I don’t shop at Walmart,” Carrothers said, “and that’s elitist on my part.” He laughed.
He plans to keep his business operating, close off the public access and remove the deck before Nov. 1. He also plans to apply for a variance for another deck.
“The whole thing is really stupid,” he said.
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“Carrothers plans to bar the public from accessing a causeway and island on Jennings Pond behind his Main Street property”. Just like a spoiled child would react.
You are mean! Your comment is infantile and unnecessary! No you would think a normal adult would have left name calling back in elementary school!
So the APA has basically become a mechanism to screw your neighbors just because “I don’t like that guy”. It’s time to disband the APA. They once served a purpose and I’m glad they stopped development in some spots thirty years ago. But every single thing I’ve read in the last twenty years is them interfering over ticky-tack stuff that no one cares about. Then when big projects that a lot of people care deeply about (for or against) come along the projects get approved because someone knew somebody. If they aren’t defending the little guys and aren’t opposing the big guys just get rid of it. They had a good run.
Isn’t one of the most basic tenets of our legal system that you get to face your own accuser? You can’t accuse someone of theft and not identify yourself. Why is the APA not identifying who the complainant is in these cases? It’s probably the same person a lot of the time.
The accuser/complainant is the APA. He got to face them. The un-permitted deck speaks for itself!
Lack of due diligence…
agreed
Always get it in writing… An architect should know that.
ALL SNOWMOBILERS BOYCOTT “Another Paradise” spread the word snowmobilers to everyone you know!
Carrothers makes mistakes with APA, punishes town and tourists by denying trails and access..Long lake residents boycott bakery and boat rental shop. As a snowmobiler I will from this point on not do business at “Another Paradise”. i will recommend everyone I know in Newcomb, Minerva to boycott also. Two can play that game Mr. Carrothers!!!
Great idea, tell your circle of 3 to boycott, big whoop!
was not talking about your friendship circle robert
Do Snowmobilers really rent kayaks in the winter? Or even in the summer, for that matter?
This seems like a business (two actually) that supports tourism and needs community support in return, not resistance.
do you really think snowmobilers don’t do other outdoor activities besides ride in snow?? Most snowmobilers are outdoors people and do many activities, and simply we don’t stop at a bakery and get something and a coffee? dont eat lunch at establishments? thousands of riders boycotting has effect.
Yes, get it in writing! As a licensed architect you know you must have the required permits and variances in hand before any work starts, does not matter how many mansions and upscale homes you have built in the past. I’ve heard people say the heck with that permit or permission I will just pay the fine. Guess the fine was larger than expected?
These gentlemen chose to live in the park, like it or not we must all follow the rules. I live within the park, I have to follow the rules too.
Lastly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it looks like a Ron Jon’s surf shop to me.
So much for the rights of private property. Perhaps you want tourists, residents and strangers using your property as a right of way but there are liability issues and nuisance issues that could affect usage. If this is a fit of pique so be it but I assume something will be worked out between the parties as it usually is. This is a businessman and businesses need local goodwill.
Property rights come with limits…
… zoning, covenants, taxes, etc…
… next thing, you’ll be using the word, “taking”…
More likely that the long history of use of the right of way has terminated Mr. Carrother’s ability to change it now. And why does he want to be mean to his neighbors anyway when he is the party responsible for not following normal procedures? Does he think that he is also entitled to go 80 mph on Route 8, just cause he’d like to?
If you know what you will get in writing and that you won’t like what it says then just do it anyway and hope that no one notices or cares (or that you can bully your way out of the fix.) Whoever is tormenting poor Mr. Carrothers, I am on there side. And let’s all hope the APA keeps trying to do their job.
Kick some a** George. We are 100% behind your effort to upgrade your property from “Walmart” standards to better. Everyone benefits from improvements. You have a standard of quality building in your work history. Fear not. Onwards and upwards.
The Eiffel Tower is beautiful, but I wouldn’t want to see it on the shore of Long Lake.
The “conversation” and supposed “negotiation” was meaningless if there isn’t anything in writing. Carothers should have known that if he’s an experienced architect, so he only has himself to blame. Regarding the APA, if it wasn’t created 50 years ago to regulate and control development, I can assure you the Adirondack Park would be a disaster today.
So very right JOE, otherwise every bit of shoreline would be cabins and every lake, pond full of sewage. even with APA look at water issues with Lake George, Lake champlain as two extremely well know issues with run off and sewage.
Goodness, that property stands out like a sore thumb in that location. Maybe raze it and try harder for the French cottage permits. Or even, imagine it, an Adirondack style building.
Fear not, Helen, rumor has it the APA plans to eliminate the building and install an anti-aircraft battery to eliminate those noisy seaplanes. LOL
ROFL, is kinda ugly. like half wood sided and couldnt afford to finish siding.
will not be stopping here…really missing the old days with Mike fixing breakfast, lunch and the occasional dinner….
Thumbs up Laurie
Oh yeah!!! We used to get a group of friends and ride over from Newcomb and get breakfast on the way to canoing somewhere and/or fishing or off to drop snowmobiles for a day of riding.
So miss Big Wallie’s, that was when Long Lake was simple. Not a lot of ppl or any of those big ass houses, campgrounds still existed.
Mr Carrothers claims to have been an experienced architect who renovated old houses down in Dutchess County. Would anyone like to guess what Dutchess County would have done to him for doing building work without the correct permits? It is hard to believe he really did major building/renovation work downstate or he’d know that not getting required permits and clearance before doing work would be malpractice for any builder.
Maybe Mr. Carrothers thinks Adirondackers are not as smart as he thinks he is and he thinks that he does not have to follow rules here?
So, he is going to punish us, who he calls “the masses”, apparently not high class enough for Mr. Dutchess County. It is a shame to see people come from elsewhere and create problems for our community because they feel above the rules. Arrogance is never pretty. It currently seems popular to substitute arrogance for civility and neighborliness.
So miss Big Wallie’s, that was when Long Lake was simple. Not a lot of ppl or any of those big ass houses, campgrounds still existed.
I enjoyed kayaking on Jennings Pond and taking a walk along the lovely new nature trail there. Neither the pond nor the nature trail are natural. They were projects created by public funds. Maybe someone knows how to apply for a grant to fill in part of Jennings Pond to create a better public launch point for kayaks and a new path to the causeway. Then, the deck will no longer be too close to the pond. Everyone wins and a few more hours of labor are created for people who need them.
Kirsten, I like your idea – Too bad Mr.C feels the need to restrict usage on Jenning’s Pond! We will always protect our forest and waterways from people who abuse them. You got caught, you were wrong! Your community knows what you are trying to do…it’s not right.
I think the deck is a nice addition.