It's come at a price but not a long-term cost.
In the last nine years, Solebury taxpayers spent $22 million acquiring half of that land or arranging conservation easements with local farmers who would rather keep their property as open space than sell it to developers eying it for new housing. A majority of those funds have come from a total of $26 million in three bond referenda overwhelmingly approved by Solebury voters. The other acreage has been preserved as county parks.
Even private citizens are willing to dig into their own pockets to ensure undeveloped land in Solebury remains unfettered of housing or commercial development. For every dollar of public money, at least $2 in private investment is made.
Reed Denby, not only put his 70-acre Sycamore Farm that has been in the family for three generations in an easement, he donated money to the township to help preserve the Raymond Farm, which consists of 60 acres adjacent to his farm.
"I didn't want to look at a bunch of houses there," Denby said.
The money, an amount no one wants to divulge, made up the difference the township needed to pay the Raymonds to put the farm in a conservation easement.
To be put in such an easement, a township will appraise a parcel and offer the property owner a percentage of its fair market value, most often 80 percent. The remainder is most often donated by the land owner. While preserving open space is an altruistic enticement, a property owner in Solebury will have their school taxes frozen. The total value of the easements in the town so far totals $75 million.
Solebury isn't done.
It currently has 24 projects totaling 800 acres in various stages of the preservation pipeline. Many of the projects will be wrapped up this year. But, it has set its sights on even more land.
"We are in a race to gobble up what is left," said Jan Ubel, who chairs the township's land preservation committee. "We are in a race against the developers."
Solebury's goal is to preserve a total of more than 10,000 acres, or half of the township, within the next five years.
"If you don't have ambitious goals, you never reach them," said John Granger, township manager.
That means another referendum will be considered, along with funds from other groups that spearhead land preservation, such as Natural Lands Trust or Heritage Conservancy, which have been involved in Solebury's efforts, Granger said.
While developers find anti-sprawl movements one of the biggest barriers to entering or expanding in an area, for Solebury, the economics of preservation make sense, said Peter Williamson, vice president of conservation services at Natural Lands Trust.
"It's not just that they love the landscape," he said. "They've done a financial analysis that indicates that it's cheaper in the long run to preserve open space than to support the schools and municipal services that would come from a rapid increase in growth."
It has other benefits, too. Already a pricey and desirable place to live because of its location between New York City and Philadelphia and next door to New Hope, property values have risen as a result of the open space program but by how much hasn't been tracked.
Several studies have substantiated the effect open space has on property values. In 2003, Pennsylvania State University researchers concluded in a study titled "The Impact of Open Space and Potential Local Disamenities on Residential Property Values in Berks County, Pennsylvania," that open space boosts housing values.
Some enterprising developers have also taken advantage of open land, using it as an added bonus feature for new subdivisions, Granger said. "They use it to market their houses for a little more," he said.
While Bucks County, in general, has been at the forefront in the state in land preservation, Solebury has been a standout. One of the main factors in its success is it started preservation efforts early. While Solebury didn't pass its first referendum to dedicate funds for open space until 1996, it initiated a farm preservation program in 1989.
"It's a result of having a gorgeous landscape to begin with that everyone recognizes, and the tremendous pressure of growth over the last 20 years," said Williamson of the Natural Lands Trust.
Solebury, Williamson noted, also has a good system in place. Ubel's land protection committee was formed in the late 1990s and acts as a liaison between property owners and supervisors; it's not just elected officials making decisions.
The township also maintains a set of procedures to which it adheres in order to pinpoint properties for preservation and land appraisal. It brings in professional consultants to work out legalities of an easement or transfer. Ubel's committee also annually walks preserved land to make certain landowners aren't violating any terms of the easements.
"The community is extremely devoted to land preservation," said Ubel, who returned six years ago to Solebury, where she grew up. "What was a field when I was a kid are now houses as far as I can see. It just sickened me."
This article appeared in the Philadelphia Business Journal on February 18, 2005.
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