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New Paltz farms in line for protection
By Jonathan Ment
Daily Freeman
December 2, 2005

NEW PALTZ - Preserving another 181 acres of farmland will cost the Wallkill Valley Land Trust nearly $1 million, and a six-month clock on the deal is ticking.

But the land preservation group has started it campaign almost halfway to its goal, thanks to a $475,000 pledge by the New York City-based Open Space Institute.

Two farms on Huguenot Street make up the largest remaining tracts of open space bordering the village of New Paltz, said Christopher Duncan, the trust's executive director. The farms lie largely within the town of New Paltz, he said.

The two farms, on the Wallkill River, are the 104-acre Warren Jewett Farm, where traditional field crops such as corn and hay are planted each year; and the 77-acre Huguenot Street Farm, a 225-member community supported agriculture operation owned and operated by Ron and Kate Khosla.

"It is the intention of both donors to continue the farms as they have," Duncan said.

Conservation easements to be purchased from the Khoslas and Jewett will cost $962,000, including $12,000 in transaction costs. Payments are somewhere between the value of the land as is and the value of the land if it were fully developed for non-agricultural use.

Sellers retain ownership of the land and the ability to continue agricultural uses as they wish, and the sale of the development rights goes with the deeds in perpetuity.

Duncan said the two farms will remain on the tax rolls.

The easements defend the owners of open space against financial pressures from residential and commercial developers.

Duncan said two one-acre parcels on the Khosla farm have been set aside for possible construction of one single-family home apiece.

"These land conservation agreements protect the water quality of the Wallkill River, rich agricultural soils, working farmlands near the growing New Paltz community, scenic views of the Shawangunk Ridge, and the wetlands on the south border of the Jewett Farm near the historic Stone Houses on Huguenot Street," said Joe Martens, the president of the Open Space Institute, in a written statement.

Bob Taylor, president of the Wallkill Valley Land Trust, said the group will be asking Huguenot Street neighbors and the community at large to help match the institute's contribution.

Duncan said this is the Wallkill Land Trust's third project involving the Open Space Institute. The first was Phillies Bridge Farm in Gardiner. Another is in the works for a 95-acre farm in Shawangunk.

Since its inception in 1987, the Wallkill Valley Land Trust has obtained conservation easements or otherwise protected nearly 1,000 acres. The protected acreage is about twice that under the trust's stewardship in 2001 when Duncan was hired as a part-time director.

Duncan now works full-time, and the trust employs two part-time employees, a part-time database manager and a part-time land stewardship consultant.

Duncan said talks with the owners of the two farms began about 10 years ago. Negotiations have been ongoing for about nine months, he said.

The 40-year-old Open Space Institute has protected nearly 100,000 acres in New York state. Through its Northern Forest Protection Fund and Conservation Loan Program, the institute has also assisted in the protection of 1.4 million acres in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and North Carolina.

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