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Williams Lake plan, now under review, calls for hotel, spa and homes
By William J. Kemble, Correspondent
(Kingston) Daily Freeman
December 7, 2007

ROSENDALE - Town planners on Thursday reviewed a proposal for a luxury spa and housing development on the Williams Lake property, featuring a 130-room hotel and 160 homes.

The Planning Board meeting, which attracted about 170 people, followed a Town Board meeting a day earlier to review the developer's request to allow a "planned resort community" under the town zoning provisions for hotels.

Plans were submitted by Canopy Development as project manager for Hudson River Valley Resorts, a group of professional investors including Rick Steele of Longmeadow Capital, Matrix Planning LLC, Revolution LLC and "other individual investors," according to documents filed with the town.

Under the proposal, the 130-room hotel would be an expansion and renovation of the existing 95-room Williams Lake Hotel. Of the 779 acres proposed to be purchased, only 325 acres would be available for development because 411 acres are protected by a conservation easement and 43 acres are covered by a lake.

The proposed development would include a 19,000-square-foot spa; a 5,000-square-foot wellness center; a 5,000-square-foot welcome and arrival center; an interpretive center, a courtyard with a skating rink, a yoga and mediation studio, a boathouse, and a teahouse.

Julienne Pape, a spokeswoman for the opposition group Save the Lakes, said developers were evasive in explaining the project.

"They've changed their statements when they said it wouldn't be a gated community even though they have gates all around it," she said.

The developers projected 1,500 construction jobs and 450 permanent employees. They estimate total water use at 158,775 gallons per day from private wells, and said sewage would be treated by a central sewage treatment facility.

The application said public access would be allowed on an existing rail trail and that "no development is planned on the prominent ridge line east of the Fifth Binnewater Lake."

Developers contend the project would be in keeping with use of the property, saying the Williams Lake Hotel already represents a "thriving resort community in its own right." The property also played a role in the town's industrial past, having been used by Rosendale Cement Co. before Gustave Williams purchased it in 1929.

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