Hadley land saved in $1.2 million deal
By Nick Grabbe
Staff Writer
Published on July 04, 2008
HADLEY - A hundred acres in North Hadley will be shielded from development, as a result of a $1.2 million purchase by a partnership of eight private groups and public land conservation agencies.
The Kestrel Trust, a regional nonprofit land trust, was the prime mover in Monday's complicated purchase. It took two years to negotiate and is probably the biggest, most complex deal in the trust's 38-year history, said Kristin DeBoer, its executive director.
"There were 14 heirs with 14 different thoughts of how the land should end up," she said. She credited Carolyn Hayes, of Mount Warner Road, as the principal heir who wanted to keep the land free from development.
All the land was on the market while the deal was under discussion, DeBoer said. The owners could have gotten more by selling it for residential development, but a package deal was attractive to them, she said.
"And they had the satisfaction of knowing that the land would remain as it had been for generations," she said.
All the land was originally owned by Frank Scott, one of the original settlers of North Hadley, who died in 1935. The property passed on to his children and their children, and had not been developed before because it was tied up in legal proceedings for 30 years, DeBoer said.
The land includes the following parcels:
* 24 acres of woodlands on River Drive, which will be purchased by the Department of Conservation and Recreation to become part of the Connecticut River Greenway State Park;
* 34 acres of farmland on the corner of River Drive and Huntington Road. This land will be protected through a state Agricultural Preservation Restriction and resold to a farmer;
* 24 acres of woodlands along Stockwell Road, which will be privately owned and protected from development by a conservation restriction;
* 13.5 acres of fields off Huntington Road, which will add to adjacent woodlands and fields owned by the Kestrel Trust and private landowners;
* and 5.7 acres of Lake Warner shoreline, which will be owned by the Kestrel Trust and protected by a conservation restriction.
The money for the $1.2 million purchase came mostly from public money, such as the Hadley Community Preservation Act and state funds.
The Kestrel Trust contributed some money, as did one anonymous Hadley resident who wanted to keep woodlands from development, DeBoer said.
"Every acre of this land was worth the effort," she said. "We are grateful to the public agencies and private citizens who donated the funds to make this conservation project possible."
