A Bumper Crop Of Bureaucracy

ESSEX, N.Y. — When Salim B. Lewis and his wife, Barbara, began building three suburban-style homes in 2006 for the workers on their 1,200-acre organic farm here, they didn’t realize they were wading into a regulatory brawl with the state that apparently set off an interagency dispute.

However, Mr. Lewis has threatened to sell the farm during a dispute with the state over building permits.

The farm, nestled in the Champlain Valley and not far from Montreal, is viewed by many as one of the most innovative in New York, an example of a successful agricultural enterprise and an asset in an economically depressed region.

But in March, the Adirondack Park Agency, which has varying degrees of jurisdiction over the nearly 6 million-acre Adirondack Park, assessed a $50,000 civil penalty against the farm, equaling the second-largest fine the state agency had ever imposed.

While the Lewises had obtained local building permits, the park agency said that they failed to obtain permits from it, even though it had not sought permits for a house in three decades. Most farms in the area limit themselves to building mobile homes for migrant workers, and the agency had scant records that it had even required permits for those. Mr. Lewis, a former Wall Street investment executive, is most likely the only farmer in the region wealthy enough to build large, comfortable houses for his workers.

Critics of the agency saw it as an odd position to take for a regulatory body with environmental concerns at its core. Should the Lewises sell their farm, as they have threatened to do, a developer could build 30 homes on the property. Local lawmakers called it an example of the park agency overreaching its authority.

The long-running battle over the homes on the Lewis farm seems to have touched off an interagency squabble.

In late November, Patrick Hooker, commissioner of the State Department of Agriculture and Markets, wrote a letter to Curt Stiles, the chairman of Adirondack Park Agency, stating that the department “supports the Lewises’ efforts in their attempt to provide modern, energy-efficient housing for their employees.” He went on to argue that under state law, farm worker housing can be viewed as “an agricultural structure and part of a ‘farm operation,’ ” a distinction that Mr. Lewis’s lawyers argue would make it exempt from permit requirements.

Judith Enck, the deputy secretary for the environment, oversees both agencies.

“I don’t think there’s a dispute between the two,” she said in a recent interview.

“Historically people don’t like to be told what you can and can’t do with your land,” added Ms. Enck, a longtime environmental activist appointed by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer. “The A.P.A. has been reasonable and sensible.”

The Lewises have equipped their operation with technology that others farmers could never afford: cultivator shovels from Denmark, German-made harvesters and an innovative approach to drainage that involves global positioning systems that allow for planting weeks earlier than other farms in the region.

“His farm operation is very impressive and we do wish him all the success with that, but the agency feels he is required to get a permit,” said Mark E. Sengenberger, the interim executive director for regulatory programs for the park agency.

Mr. Lewis said he feared that if the park agency was granted jurisdiction over his farm, he would be bombarded with permit requirements. Should that happen, he added, “we’re out of the farming business.”

“No other farmer can fight it,” he said, referring to the agency “All of them have told me you’re the only guy who can fight this.”

Peter Gregg, a spokesman for the State Farm Bureau, which lobbies on behalf of farmers, called the fine “totally unprecedented.”

“There’s other jurisdictions that have tried to impose their regulations on our farms, but I don’t think we’ve ever come across anything this extreme,” he added.

In a recent interview, Mr. Hooker, of the Department of Agriculture and Markets, played down his department’s role.

“There’s a discussion going on between the A.P.A. and the Lewises that has nothing to do with this agency,” Mr. Hooker said, adding that he had let the matter drop after speaking to Mr. Stiles of the park agency last December. “We’re all on the same page,” he said.

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