Tuxedo - If the long-brewing battle in Sterling Forest State Park were golfing's Masters, the timber rattlesnake would slither away wearing the winner's coveted green jacket.

A developer proposing to build 93 mansions and an 18-hole golf course is dropping the links from the plan because of state environmental officials' concerns about encroaching on the protected terrain of the timber rattlesnake, a threatened species in New York.

"It's obvious that we won't be able to build the golf course, which is disappointing," Lou Heimbach, chief executive officer of Sterling Forest LLC, said yesterday.

The decision marks a major change in a project that has sparked opposition more intense than its size would suggest, largely because it would be built on one of the last privately owned parcels in a 20,000-acre park.

Critics who have battled to stop the Sterling Forge Estates development yesterday cheered the defeat of the golf course - and vowed to continue fighting the rest of the project.

"Aside from the rattlesnakes, there were so many other issues, such as water and other species," said Mary Yrizarry, vice chairman of the Sterling Forest Partnership preservation group.

Tuxedo Supervisor Ken Magar, meanwhile, expressed disappointment - only partly because he looked forward to teeing off at the public golf course.

He supported Sterling Forge Estates because he viewed the project - especially the golf course - as a badly needed property tax source in a town consisting largely of protected park land.

He estimates the course alone would have generated at least $80,000 a year in taxes.

All sides have known for at least a year that the timber rattlesnake's presence in and near the 571-acre project site would change the plans.

Sterling Forest LLC had already shaved 10 homes from the 103 it had proposed to steer clear of snake turf.

But on March 26, a long-awaited letter from the state Department of Environmental Conservation arrived. The state had just finished analyzing data collected over two years by consultants who implanted radio transmitters in rattlesnakes and monitored their dens, "basking sites" and movements.

In the letter, Alexander F. Ciesluk Jr., a deputy regional permit administrator in the DEC's New Paltz office, told the Tuxedo Town Board that "a substantial, undisturbed area should be maintained" in the section of the project where the golf course had been planned.

The DEC has also asked that other areas of the project site remain undisturbed and told the developer to continue tracking snakes through July.

The agency says six rattlesnake dens are within a mile and a half of the Sterling Forge Estates site, which straddles County Route 84.

One is "Gordon's Den, which is believed to contain one of the largest timber rattlesnake populations in New York State," the DEC said in its assessment.

The number of proposed luxury homes might get closer to 103 again. Eliminating the golf course has opened up 250 acres, Heimbach said.
He said his consultants must study the DEC's recommendations more closely before deciding how to reconfigure the development plans.