It is a tentative agreement that will likely attract continued resistance to development from some opponents. Several constituent organizations of the Catskill Preservation Coalition have broken ranks with other members and refused to join the agreement, thus preserving their right to contest the plan. No one should have any problem with that, especially in response to a plan that was developed behind closed doors with a gag agreement among participants. It's hard to be sure how sound a plan is when it has not been developed or reviewed as part of give-and-take process in open sunshine.

At the same time, the complaint by continued opponents that the scale of development envisioned would impose "socioeconomic displacement" and "suck the economic vitality from the surrounding communities" is not to be taken seriously. It's a chronically depressed area now. The cost of continued paralysis for fear of any change is what's intolerable.

There remain environmental and social issues to be closely examined and perhaps mitigated. But, on its face, the proposal gets high marks as an innovative and reasonable compromise between the conflicting needs of conservation and economic development.

It also gets the proposal off the dime for everyone involved. Eight years of review is just too long for any development proposal, confusing duration with thoroughness. It ties up capital, ties up government, ties up the lives and resources of interested area residents and organizations, pro and con.

WHAT appears to have made all of the difference in this matter was the active involvement of the governor, who let it be known during his campaign last year that he saw resolution of the issue to be a regional priority.

What the governor appears to have delivered is a mix of classic political compromise of contesting values along with the sensible and creative mobilization of government resources in a partnership of public, private and not-for-profit interests.

Greasing the way in this deal will be the $14 million purchase of land for which developers paid $6 million.

Under the plan, the Trust for Public Land will purchase 1,216 acres of Crossroads Ventures' holdings on the eastern side of the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center and 78 acres on the western side - the majority of the former Highmount Ski Center - for $14 million. Most of that land then will be transferred to the state and added to the surrounding Catskill Forest Preserve as "forever wild." The 78 acres on the western side will be added to the state-owned Belleayre Mountain Ski Center, which will be upgraded.

Also central to the agreement are the halving of the developed footprint of the resort, conservation easements prohibiting any further development of nearly all of the resort land, elimination of proposed development within the Ashokan Reservoir watershed, and development and use of the existing Pine Hill sewage treatment plant for resort effluent instead of construction of a private, free-standing treatment facility.

Also key was the willingness of Crossroads Ventures to reduce the number of hotel and lodging units by about 20 percent - from 772 to 629 - and to build environmentally friendly structures.

And one of the two planned 18-hole golf courses was eliminated and the remaining links will be constructed on a new, flatter site than originally proposed and will be managed organically.

Signatories to the agreement include parties with strong environmental interests in the matter, including the Catskill Center of Conservation and Development, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and New York City.

IN A perfect world, there would be no compromise. Conservationists would get everything they wanted - virgin forests and hills forever untouched. The developers and advocates of economic development would get everything they wanted - the maximum return on investment, the greatest number of jobs.

But politics is the art of the possible - in this case, a mediation not simply of conflicting wants, but, in the case of an environmentally sensitive area with a chronically depressed economy, between conflicting needs.

At best, this is an enormously difficult task. The governor, who took the lead role, deserves particular appreciation for his leadership, as does U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, whose downsizing plan, initially rejected by Crossroads Ventures, formed the foundation of the agreement brokered by Spitzer. The rest of the parties to the agreement, especially including Crossroads Ventures, are to be congratulated for their participation and willingness to give in order to get.