By Jay Braman Jr.

TWO LOCAL citizens groups, along with a neighbor of the proposed Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park, have filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court, claiming a deal with state officials last September to move the project forward is illegal and should be annulled.

Named as defendants in the suit by the Catskill Heritage Alliance, the Pine Hill Water District Coalition, and Benjamin and Edith Korman of Highmount are Gov. Eliot Spitzer; several state agencies, including the state Department of Environmental Conservation; and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.

The action names everyone who signed an agreement in principal on Sept. 5, 2007, when Spitzer announced the deal that calls for the state to spend $14 million to purchase more than 1,200 acres from developer Dean Gitter and development company Crossroads Ventures, while shifting Gitter's proposed complex over to a remaining 700 acres. The deal also calls for the state to invest millions more in the expansion of the state-owned Belleayre Mountain Ski Center, which is adjacent to the proposed resort property.

"The declaratory judgment action seeks a determination that the Sept. 5, 2007, agreement in principal was entered into illegally, requires illegal action by the units of the governments of the State of New York, and requires the use of procedures that are illegal and therefore should be declared null and void," wrote the plaintiff's attorney, Robert H. Feller.

The 28-page document, which Feller said has not yet been served upon the defendants, also targets the Department of Environmental Conservation, which is affected by the agreement as owner of the ski center, but is also the agency overseeing the environmental review of the agreement.

The Article 78 proceeding "also seeks a review of actions that are being taken or will be taken by respondent New York State Department of Environmental Conservation," Feller wrote.

Feller, who called the current review process "a sham" in a telephone interview Tuesday, identifies 13 separate causes of the action, including a claim that the agreement illegally commits state agencies to moving forward with the project plans, including the state purchase of large tracts of private land, without complying with state law.

Feller also states that the project as set out in the agreement is so different from the original 1999 proposal that it requires its own environmental review, but the agreement instead only requires the developer to supplement the review that has been ongoing since the 1999 plan was announced. Feller argued that there is no room to change the project in the event that environmental harms are unearthed.

"(The agreement) puts (the review) into a straitjacket," Feller said. "The core decisions have already been made."

Also named in the suit are: the state of New York, state Department of Health, state Department of Transportation, City of New York, Crossroads Ventures, Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, Natural Resources Defense Council, New York Public Interest Research Group, Riverkeeper, Theodore Gordon Flyfishers, Trout Unlimited and Zen Environmental Studies.

Representatives of Crossroads could not be reached for comment.

State Department of Environmental Conservation spokesman Yancey Roy said Tuesday that the agency would not comment on any litigation.

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