A group of condo owners at Mountain Creek banded together late last year to sue Mountain Creek and Intrawest, claiming the resort and its owner misled buyers with marketing hype about a year-round tourist village of shops and restaurants.
The Vernon case concerns Mountain Creek ski resort, whose owner and developer, Intrawest, is being sued over a promise made to a group of condo buyers that a four-season resort would grow up around them.
An angry group of condo owners sued.
Except for five armed men guarding the Chess Palace, a pyramid of glass and mirrors shimmering in the frozen sunlight among groups of condos, stores, and bars, Chess City was deserted when I arrived.
In Tarrytown, Joe Cotter, the president of Hudson Harbor, a group of 250 condos on 30 riverfront acres, has similarly lowered prices on the first 56 units, which are now going up.
In Wall, where Franklin Development Group is building Cedar Hollow Estates, a group of 11 condos set in horse country, free upgrades that were worth as much as $100,000 and included an in-home elevator have been eliminated.
And while there are certainly plenty of houses on the island -- 2,761 villas, cottages and single-family homes, including a group of high-rise condos built in Kiawah's early days -- many of them seem to meld almost imperceptibly into the landscape.
A group of local residents fears the condo will cast long shadows over neighborhood parks and gardens, and that the construction could damage the integrity of neighboring 19th-century tenement buildings.
"It has a real impact on people on fixed incomes," said Corey B. Bearak, a vice president of the Queens Civic Congress, an umbrella group of 100 civic, co-op, condo and tenant organizations.
"I'll be honest, it's a bit like living in a dorm," said the rainbow-haired woman named Heidi who showed a group of us around the luxury condo building which hosts Tony's own apartment, other members of the Zappos/Downtown Project braintrust, and "crash pads" for visitors.
These groups advocate education as a less expensive method of reducing disputes, and maintain that the complainers represent a minority of condo owners.
