A proposal by opponents of the private Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park to withhold $60 million in state funding from to the project may be redundant ”“ even a nonissue ”“ after a  spokeswoman for the governor said the money was never set aside and the developer claims to know nothing about it.
A spokeswoman for the resort developer, Crossroads Development L.L.C., said the state has not set aside any money for the resort project. Joan Lawrence-Bauer said the project”™s private investors are still solvent and still strongly supporting it. She said the state should still invest in the adjacent state-owned Belleayre Mountain Ski Center as part of a public-private partnership to revitalize the area”™s economy.  Â
The $400 million resort would straddle the border of Ulster and Delaware counties adjacent to the state-owned and operated Belleayre facility.
The resort was first proposed in 1999, but has been buffeted by concerns about its affect on the New York City water supply and by local road and housing capacity. But supporters said those problems could be mitigated and said the project would bring jobs and investment to a part of the state that has been hurting for decades.
Under the plan, the resort would comprise two complexes ”” one with a 250-room hotel and 139 townhouse-style lodging units surrounding an 18-hole golf course; the other with a 120-room hotel and spa, 60 lodging units in two buildings and another 60 detached units in up to 52 buildings. The resort and state lands would be developed to physically connect.
The deal also calls for about 1,200 acres of woodland near the resort to be sold by Crossroads to the state to be protected under the Forever Wild clause of state law.
$60 million in state money was widely believed to be earmarked for the proposed public/private project under an agreement brokered by officials under the former Spitzer administration for a hotel, golf course and condo project in the Catskill Mountains.
In a Nov. 16 letter to Gov. David Paterson, the Catskill Heritage Alliance, a 500-member grassroots community and environmental organization opposing the project, Richard Schaedle chairman wrote: “In our current crisis, when so much is being asked of so many, this kind of public spending to support private interests makes no sense at all.
“We respectfully urge that you review this $60 million public expenditure in our state budget, which we hold to be an unnecessary and, in the present crisis, an excessive burden on taxpayers.”
 But the Governor”™s deputy press secretary Erin Duggan said in an e-mail exchange, “There was never $60 million earmarked for the project.” She said she could not explain where the figure arose from.Â
Crossroads spokeswoman Joan Lawrence-Bauer agreed. “I don”™t know what the explanation for that figure is,” she said. “That is a figure that the Catskill Alliance has floated and we have said all along we know nothing about that figure. We”™re not going to receive anything from the state.”
She said that under the deal brokered by Spitzer, the state would buy the 1,200-acre Big Indian plateau currently owned by Crossroads, but said the amount is being determined by three separate and private appraisals. “We have no idea what they might pay for that,” said Lawrence-Bauer.
She said the state is also expected to upgrade the state owned Belleayre Mountain Ski Center and purchase the adjoining Highmount Ski Center, which Crossroads currently owns. “Again, we have no numbers that is all being done by appraisal,” said Lawrence-Bauer.
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Currently the project is back in the environmental assessment phase, with the Crossroads organization doing a supplemental draft environmental impact statement and Belleayre doing what is called a unit management study. When those studies are completed, perhaps as soon as early 2009, they will be combined into a joint cumulative impact study.
Lawrence-Bauer said that assuming those hurdles are cleared, an initial phase of the project that would involve building the two hotels the golf course and the spa would be constructed over the span of about three years. She said the proposed residential development would not be built until the economy was back on track and in any case would not be constructed on spec, but only after buyers had been found.  Â
“We are looking eight to 10 years out,” Lawrence-Bauer said adding that despite local rumors to the contrary, “Our investors are still 100 percent committed to this project.”
