Loon Lake & Loon Gulf: the Full Story

Loon Gulf is an Italian-held corporation that bought land around Loon Lake in 1985. They've floated a few development proposals since then, but mostly they are known for failing to pay their taxes. They 'sold' the golf course property for a nominal sum to a shell company known as Elephant Re in a silly attempt to 'prove' that the land was worth less than the state assessment. Since 2019, they've been contesting their tax bill and avoiding payment - a fact worth noting for those think that Loon Gulf can be trusted to develop responsibly or have the best interests of the community in mind. 

The full shape of Loon Gulf's plans are beginning to become clear.  They have drawn up a development plan for the hamlet/ old golf course (pictured on the home page) that would transform the hamlet, overwhelm public facilities and potentially devastate the environment. A proposed beach area for these new homes seems to have been picked with maximum devastation in mind - it's a known loon nesting site. 

That was in the summer of '25. Since then, they have spent months logging the entire 280-acreage of the west side of the lake, sometimes within 100 feet of the lake (expressly prohibited by APA rules). Clear cutting more than 30 acres is prohibited, but they have skirted these rules by leaving a few small trees standing here and there while despoiling the rest of the land. 

Our true fear is that they are following the classic shady developer's playbook: clear the land under the guise of 'forest management', and then propose a subdivision. In this way, developers avoid needing to get a permit for their project until most of the environmental damage is already done. 

A recent survey posted the total number of loons in the Adirondacks as around one thousand - a figure that is expected to fall in coming years, as development and climate change take their toll. Loons will not stay when the water is overfished and they have nothing to eat. Loons cannot raise their young when near-by construction disturbs their habitat and too many power boats throw up waves that wash out their nests. 

Many people who live in the Adirondacks are understandably frustrated when people who spend eight weeks of the year here try to dictate who gets to build what, where and when. The counter-argument is this:

• Many of the people who oppose the Loon Gulf development DO live at Loon Lake/ locally year-round
• We are NOT opposed to all development - only development that is irresponsible, conducted by untrustworthy stewards, and that will inevitably lead to the long term decline of everything that makes the area special
• Why's it always ALL OR NOTHING? Loon Gulf is clearly trying to extract as much money as possible by micro-subdividing the land, logging every tree they can just short of the technical definition of clear cutting, failing to account for whether this much clearing & road-building will lead to run-off that poisons the streams that flow into Kushaqua and Rainbow lakes and scrimping on the environmental studies that would indicate whether 60 new septic systems could possibly lead to contamination of a sensitive area.  In fifty years at Loon Lake, Loon Gulf has not once BUILT something or CONTRIBUTED in any way to our community. All they have done is wrangle over tax bills and tried to extract as much money from the land as possible.
• It is not unreasonable to worry about what new development and housing construction will do to our fishing stock (already much lower than in living generation's memory) and to our loon population, not to mention the vastly increased danger of invasive species (which already effects 108 lakes in the Adirondacks)