CHESTERFIELD — A 16-acre parcel of land near the Chesterfield Gorge that conservationists are seeking to protect was sold during a town auction Saturday to a local woman who said her intent was to conserve the property.
The town of Chesterfield held the auction at town offices Saturday, with 28 qualified buyers bidding on four parcels of land the town had obtained through unpaid taxes, including the 16-acre property on River Road. Leading up to the auction, some had asked the town’s Select Board to either postpone the auction or pull properties of conservation value off the block to find ways to protect them from development.
Chesterfield resident Thea Hardigg bid $70,000 and won the River Road parcel, which she said she intends to conserve. Carl Cignoni, the Chesterfield representative and chairman of the Westfield River Wild and Scenic Advisory Committee who’s been a major player in the conservation effort, said Hardigg had reached out to him about potentially bidding on the property for conservation purposes after reading an article in the Gazette.
Cignoni said Hardigg had agreed to bid on the property if The Nature Conservancy, which was also bidding for the River Road parcel and two others, reached its monetary cap. And that’s exactly what happened.
“That was the primary piece that we were most concerned about out of all the parcels,” Cignoni said about the River Road land. “We’re glad that it worked out.”
The River Road parcel fronts and extends into the Westfield River and is close to the Chesterfield Gorge. Over 78 miles of the Westfield River has been designated by the federal government as a National Wild and Scenic River. River Road is also known as the East Branch Hiking Trail, which Cignoni said in a previous Gazette article goes from the Gorge to the Knightville Dam, creating a continuous stretch of wilderness and river. River Road is also a popular recreational area.
The River Road parcel is surrounded by protected land, and conservationists said before the auction that they feared private development on the property would break up the continuity of the wilderness around the river. Despite the objections, Town Administrator Susan Labrie said Saturday that the Select Board has historically auctioned off tax title properties.
Markelle Smith, a land protection specialist with The Nature Conservancy, was a bidder at the auction who said her main focus was on another parcel on Main Road, which is mostly wetland, and the River Road property. She said she was there on behalf of the state, since it cannot bid at auction, and that she was capped to bidding up to the land’s appraised value because of the conservancy’s nonprofit status. She was outbid on the Main Road property but expressed optimism thhow the River Road parcel will be preserved from this point will be worked out.
“It’s just undoubtedly meant to be preserved,” Smith said of the property, which “checks every box” when it comes to ecological value.
Adia Bennett and Lucia Dostal, both 18 years old and from Northampton, were at the auction Saturday and said that they had sent emails to the Select Board and shared a petition asking them to call the auction off. Bennett said she and Dostal work at Biocitizen Inc., an educational organization that teaches youth about ecology and the environment, and that she’s used the Chesterfield Gorge area as way to show children how important nature is.
Both said they were happy that someone bought the River Road parcel with the intent to conserve it.
“All of our friends back in Northampton also love the Chesterfield Gorge and this place,” Dostal said. “So it’s really important.”
In addition to the River Road property, a 37.7-acre parcel on East Street was sold for $70,000; the 27-acre parcel on Main Road sold for $20,000; and a one-acre parcel on North Road sold for $9,000.
Michael Connors can be reached at mconnors@gazettenet.com.