NORTH CREEK -- As negotiations continue for the Ski Bowl project, the developer who plans to build a new residential complex is working on offerings to help the town handle an influx of new visitors.
    Plans are in the works for FrontStreet Mountain Development to provide a new ladder truck costing $1 million and build a structure to house it; design and construct two new wells in the village; and allow the new ski hut at Ski Bowl Park to hook onto the septic system to hook onto the septic system that is put in for the development free, indefinitely.
    Sterling Goodspeed, a Johnsburg Town Board member, said the developer announced these measures at the Sept. 4 board meeting, although Mac Criklear, project manager for FrontStreet, said Thursday they are still working on the particulars.
    "We have conceptual agreements on all three of these subjects," Crikelair said.
    Goodspeed said he was pleased with the measures FrontStreet would be taking.
    "They go some distance in protecting our community infrastructure," he said.
    Goodspeed also said said that the town had been meeting with FrontStreet and other local developers to discuss improving the town water system in such a way that it would not cost taxpayers additional money.
    In a town divided in its response to the Ski Bowl project, Andi McKee, acting chairwoman of the Ski Bowl Park Committee, said she wasn't sure if these actions by FrontStreet would change any minds.
    For the people who want this development for the business it'll bring in, this is icing on the cake, McKee said. And for folks who like living in a small town and want it to stay that way, this won't sway them.

     FrontStreet plans to build a 430-acre complex including a 120-room hotel, two other inns, condominiums and other residences, a ski lodge and an equestrian center.
    The firetruck and water measures address questions that also were raised in the Notice of Incomplete Project Application (NIPA) that the Adirondack Park Agency sent FrontStreet on May 30 after FrontStreet applied for a permit from the APA.
    Keith McKeever, spokesman for the APA, said that an NIPA is often needed in the case of large developments.
    The APA was seeking more information about location of ski trail, water supply, waste water collection and treatment, traffic issues and other concerns, McKeever said.
    The town also signed a 20-year contract at the end of August with Olympic Regional Development Authority which runs Gore Mountain, formalizing plans for the construction and operation of new facilities in the Ski Bowl and the Interconnection Project to connect Gore Mountain and the Ski Bowl.
    Under this agreement, ORDA will build and operate a new ski hut in the Ski Bowl, to be on land owned by the town. Although the Town Board had hoped to have local business people run concessions at the ski hut, ORDA will give the responsibility to the company that runs concessions at its other facilities.
    "That was one thing we had to give up," said town Supervisor William Thomas.
    The agreement also provides for six afternoons of free tubing at the Ski Bowl for Johnsburg residents, and Johnsburg children 18 and younger will continue to be able to ski for free at Gore.