Submitted by Tom Andersen on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 4:34pm
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| John Schroeder, left, of the Yorktown Land Trust, and Walt Daniels, co-chair of yorktown's open space advisory committee, were instrumental in persuading Town officials to buy the Stoney Street property. |
Dec. 3, 2009 -- Yorktown is moving ahead with plans to buy and preserve 200 acres on Stoney Street. Westchester Land Trust worked closely with the Yorktown Land Trust, the Yorktown open space advisory committee, and the Town Board to negotiate the $2.7 million price, which is below the $3.25 million appraised value.
Here is what the Journal News wrote about it:
YORKTOWN — The town has approved spending $2.7 million for 200 acres in a deal proponents say will save taxpayers money in the long run.
”It's 200 acres, and it's 1-acre zoning, so you do the math how many homes could be there,“ Councilman Nick Bianco said of the Granite Knoll property that straddles Stoney Street west of the Taconic Parkway. ”If you put up a house, you've got to expect kids and you've got to support that.“
The property, which lies mostly in the Lakeland school district, topped an inventory compiled by the town's Advisory Committee on Open Space in 2007. It went on the market in 2008, and the Westchester Land Trust was tapped to pursue negotiations soon after.
Approval for the spending came Tuesday.
”It's a terrific deal for the town,“ Land Trust spokesman Tom Anderson said, noting the property was appraised in the summer at $3.25 million.
The town established an open space reserve fund in 2000 that raises $400,000 a year through a $30 per parcel annual assessment. The town will borrow the money for the purchase and pay off the bond from the reserve fund.
The property was proposed by the Bartzick family for 124 single-family homes in the late 1990s. Bianco said the development would have cost taxpayers millions in new school taxes alone.
By designating the acquisition as parkland, the town would not have to pay school taxes on it. The deal is contingent upon an environmental assessment.
The property comprises two parcels, 75 acres of mostly former farmland on the west side of Stoney Street that backs up to Sylvan Glen Park, an earlier open space acquisition, and 125 acres of woodlands on the east side, open space committee member John Schroeder said.
The parcels are home to numerous trails as well as tributaries of the Peekskill and Hunter Brook watersheds, he said. The eastern portion includes a dormant granite quarry dating to 1830.
Anderson said the acquisition was not unique in the county, but it is not an everyday thing, either.
”Every town has a couple of them, but they don't come on the market very often,“ he said. ”It's rare when a property comes on the market that is as developable as this one."