$750K for preservation has committee support
Gazette Reporter
(emphasis added by Our Clifton Park Editor webmaster@ourcliftonpark.com)
SARATOGA COUNTY — Open space acquisitions in Clifton Park and Saratoga Springs and farmland conservation projects in Saratoga and Northumberland will receive money from the county land preservation program this year.
The Land Preservation Committee voted Wednesday to recommend the $750,000 available from the county preservation program be used for four projects.
Together, they would permanently prevent 562 acres from being developed. This in the sixth year of the county open space program, which has now purchased the development rights to thousands of acres of local land.
“This committee has been a very valuable tool in preserving open space in this county,” said committee Chairman Bill Peck, R-Northumberland.
The four projects were approved from nine applications that together requested about $2 million in county funding.
The biggest project the committee recommended is a $350,000 grant toward buying the development rights to 409 acres of farmland in the town of Saratoga owned by John and Barbara Hoogeveen. The county money will provide the local share toward a $2 million state farmland protection grant that was awarded in 2008, bringing that deal closer to being finalized.
“It really epitomizes what the county program was set up to do,” Peck said.
The committee also recommended $300,000 be awarded to buy the development rights to 70 acres of pasture owned by farmer Lyle Purinton in Northumberland.
In Saratoga Springs, the county will spend $30,000 toward the city’s purchase of 5 acres along the Kayaderosseras Creek, creating public access east of the Northway. The city is putting up a matching $30,000.
Another $70,000 will help Clifton Park buy 78 acres off MacElroy Road, forest and wetlands that adjoin the established Veterans Memorial Park.
Buying the Carrese forest will help the town establish an open space-wildlife corridor in the western part of town. “For a lot of reasons, this is a very important project to us,” said Clifton Park Town Supervisor Philip C. Barrett.
The proposed acquisition is not far from the Hickman Farm, which received a $100,000 county development rights grant last year. The town closed on that purchase earlier this week.
The recommendations of the committee will now go to the full Board of Supervisors for final approval at its Oct. 20 meeting.