The 2,000 acres of preserved land represents roughly a quarter of the township.
This is believed to be the most public land preserved by one municipality in Pennsylvania, and perhaps even in the nation.
"This indeed is a celebration for us, a community with a true passion for the conservation and preservation of our treasured resources," said John Eichert, chairman of the Solebury Supervisors, at Sunday's informal ceremony. "As the beauty of Bucks County has led many townships to rampant development, we have embraced land preservation as an effective way to control development, sustain our natural resources of water, air and open space, and help limit demand on our infrastructure."
In 1987, what is now called the Solebury Township Land Preservation Committee was formed, according to Eichert, and its stated goals were to "preserve the community's rural character" and "proactively engage in land preservation."
Subsequently, Solebury taxpayers overwhelmingly approved three referendums to fund $26 million for preservation costs.
Land preservation has been attained steadily over the years as it climbed to this acre milestone, Eichert said.
Additionally, the Heritage Conservancy has protected 984 acres, the National Lands Trust 990 acres and the township and the state and county have 769 acres in protected parks and open space.
"Including land preserved by other public and private sources, Solebury has over one quarter of its 17,900 acres of land permanently protected as open space," Eichert said. "We believe this makes us an unprecedented leader in Pennsylvania and perhaps nationwide."
And the work goes on.
The Land Preservation Committee's "neighbor working with neighbor" project is a unique program where appointed volunteers work with individual homeowners to preserve their land as open space, primarily through a variety of easements.
Solebury also continues to work with its conservation partners in land preservation. These include the Heritage Conservancy, the Natural Lands Trust the Brandywine Conservancy, the Bedminster Conservancy and the Bucks County Agricultural Land Preservation Board.
This article appeared in the New Hope Gazette on October 7, 2004.
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