Mountain Creek gets planning okay from township

Vernon - The Vernon Planning Board gave the Mountain Creek expansion the go-ahead when it approved a preliminary site-plan and gave a subdivision approval for three buildings at an Oct. 30 meeting. The approval came less than a month before the N. J. Highlands Council is slated to announce new regulations that would, among other restrictions, require a 300-foot buffer between flowing water and new buildings. The unnamed creek, popularly known as “Mountain Creek” flows through the property, and the site plan as it exists today wouldn’t be viable when the wide-stream-buffer regulations go into effect. Site plans approved before the new laws go into force would be exempt. Before starting to build, Mountain Creek will seek to sell 50 percent of the units in a building, Director of Development Jeff Patterson explained, adding that having the planning board approval would enable Mountain Creek to start the byzantine process of applying for the mandatory state approvals. Mayor Janet Morrison said that she is pleased and gratified to see the resort development at Mountain Creek moving forward to achieve the goal set several years ago to increase density at the base of the mountain in order to preserve the top. Morrison attributed Mountain Creek’s steady progress to the township’s “continuing cooperative relationship with the applicant.” “These approvals move us further along to the resort village we’ve wanted to see in our town, something voters have consistently asked for in elections over the past eight years,” Morrison said. “It was difficult to do, but we’ve managed, and we’ve done so with a program that allows us to achieve an aesthetically beautiful treatment, to manage traffic, and to see increased commercial revenues,” the mayor added. After thrashing out time tables and priorities for the resort, Mountain Creek has settled on Building C as the first of the three buildings to go up, Patterson said. “With the preliminary site-plan approval behind us, we are currently moving forward with the design for ‘Building C.’” Building C, which will receive a more poetic name later in the process, will complete the mountain side of the village by replacing the temporary “sprung” or “tent” structures that now house the mountain base support hub for the ski-rental shop, the restaurant, the water park and the mountain bicycling center. The tent structures were erected in 1999 after a fire destroyed the day lodge. In addition to housing the support services, the building will include some 220 resort lodging units, two levels of underground parking, and approximately 26,000 square feet of commercial space, part of which will accommodate the current support activities. Other buildings now in the planning state are Building F, and Building G. Building F will be situated at the corner of Sandhill Road and Route 94, and will contain some 240 resort-lodging units, plus a 50,000 square-foot conference facility with two levels of underground parking. Building G will be located at the corner of Sandhill Road and the entrance to Black Creek Sanctuary. This building will house 106 resort-lodging units, and will feature an underground parking garage. Many Vernon residents have been expressing concern to The Advertise-News about what effects the October 2006 decision of former Mountain Creek parent company Intrawest to sell out to Intrawest might have on expansion plans at Mountain Creek. But Patterson said there’s no reason for anyone to be worried. “The fortress transaction includes all of Intrawest’s resort properties and it is not expected to have a noticeable impact in the foreseeable future. Essentially, it is business as usual - we continue to move forward with development plans at Mountain Creek with the vision of creating a world-class four-season resort,” Patterson said. “With more new pipes and snow guns on key trails, we’ll be aiming to beat last year’s record numbers of 364,000 skier and 25,000 snow tubing visits,” Patterson concluded. Township officials have hailed Mountain Creek’s plan as a godsend for individual Vernon property owners, who now bear 90 percent of the tax burden. But environmentalist Dennis Miranda said that he continues to take a dim view of the resort’s expansion. “Since 1998, we’ve seen this development plan grow as if on steroids. We haven’t learned from our mistakes,” Miranda said.