Preserving Orange County, acres at a time

Land Trust tours properties in Monroe, Tuxedo and Warwick By David Gordon Warwick - Seymour Gordon looked out of the window of a school bus last Friday as it rattled down Route 17M from Chester toward Monroe. He pointed out the clusters of McMansions lining the route, naming the farms they replaced. Gordon, a member of the Orange County Land Trust board, knows well the farms that once supported Orange County’s economy. He was an owner of Gor-Dun’s agricultural equipment company in Goshen. As the bus passed some of the larger developments, he shook his head sadly, recalling the farms and their owners. The open land that’s disappearing is not only farms. Forested land, waterways and ridgelines are giving way to housing developments across the county. The Orange County Land Trust identifies the most important sites and uses a variety of means to keep them open and relatively untouched. Last Friday, members of the Orange County Land Trust Board rode a school bus past some of the properties the organization is preserving in Monroe, Tuxedo and Warwick. The trust already has bought or arranged for the purchase of 2,500 acres in 19 municipalities in Orange County. Much of that land also has been preserved through conservation easements - agreements between the owner and the Land Trust that the land will only be used for certain purposes. The first stop, the former Monroe Race Track, illustrates two of the methods the Orange County Land Trust uses to preserve land, said Executive Director John Gebhards. The owner, Georgina Dupcak, donated the land to the Land Trust. The Land Trust, in turn, sold the 24-acre property to the Village of Monroe to be turned into a park - after first adding some conservation agreements - a term Gebhards prefers to easements because it is clearer. Under the agreements the village can add some amenities over the foundation of the track’s former grandstand such amenities as rest rooms, but not major projects like maintenance buildings, ball fields and the like. Georgina Dupcak said the Maple Avenue property had been a half-mile race track between 1908 and 1928. As longer tracks were built, the Monroe track declined. It may be a site for future Monroe Cheese Festivals, she said. The Ramapo River skirts one side of the property. Next stop: Arrow Park The bus cruised along Old Orange Turnpike past the Mansion Ridge development to Arrow Park, more than 200 acres. The Land Trust purchased 144 acres on one side of Old Orange Turnpike and turned it over to Sterling Forest State Park. A conservation easement protects 80 acres on the other side of the road. The purchase and easement also protect the culture of a property that at one time was a Russian resort; it still contains a poets’ garden and a “healing” totem pole. The property also contains a 9/11 Memorial Forest in which 150 trees have so far been planted. The Land Trust has an option to buy some 300 acres surrounding a lake on the property, which Gebhards said Mansion Ridge developers would like to add to the development. The Land Trust is working to raise $6 million to $7 million in federal, state and private funding to exercise the option. (On Saturday, Carol Ash, the director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission presented the Land Trust with a check for $25,000 toward the purchase price.) Arrow Park is the Land Trust’s largest current project, Gebhards said. One of the smaller projects is a boat landing on the Ramapo River in Harriman State Park in Tuxedo, near the intersection of Orange County Route 106 and Route 17A. There’s a boat launch, a small rest room and a turnaround big enough for school buses, allowing school groups to visit the river - and the board’s bus to turn around. As the bus cruised up Long Meadow Road through Sterling Forest, Gebhards recounted some of the history of the park. At one time there was an effort to make it a major corporate research center, but only IBM and International Paper have major facilities there. There are also some smaller research buildings off Long Meadow Road, but most of the forest has been preserved. A later attempt to develop a major housing and business development in the forest was headed off by a consortium of preservation organizations, the federal government and the states of New York and New Jersey. The board held a lunchtime business meeting at the Sterling Forest visitors center. One item was a progress report on a new executive director. Gebhards will be retiring around the end of this year after five years as executive director. He said the actual date he will leave depends on how long it takes to choose a successor and bring him up to speed. After lunch the bus made its way up Route 17A and then through Greenwood Lake to Warwick. The bus passed the Cox Farm, which was recently sold to the Trust for Public Land and will be sold to Sterling Forest State Park. “We said it should be part of Sterling Forest State Park,” Gebhards said. “We got it to the point where everybody was willing to do a deal, but we didn’t have the money. So the Trust for Public Land bought it, and will sell it to Sterling Forest State Park.” The Land Trust and the Town of Warwick will preserve 600 acres over the second-largest aquifer in the town. Orange County’s government is also preserving open space through grants raised through a land preservation bond act.