SELKIRK — Wednesday night’s Town Board meeting ran a bit long — three hours long — as both sides of the argument surrounding the Town purchasing 300 cares of local farm and woodlands pled their case on Oct. 26.
Steve Wickham, who moved from Guilderland to Bethlehem last year with his wife, said he recognized some similarities between the two neighboring towns. He had lived in Guilderland for 20 years, the last few as chairperson of the Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth.
“And one of the refrains from the residents in Guilderland that I heard over and over again was we don’t want to be like Colonie,” he told Bethlehem Town Board members. “And then after moving here, I hear over and over again, we don’t want to be like Guilderland.”
The Town Board is considering the purchase of more than 300 acres of farm and woodlands — including three of the four corners at the Route 9W and Wemple Road intersection — at an apparent $1 million discount.
Under Proposition 2, the Town would purchase 307 acres land with $3 million coming from various municipal funds, avoiding a municipal bond or any additional taxes. The aggregate value of the nine parcels was appraised at $4,032,500 in February by Schecter Valuation Services, LLC, a company commissioned by the Town.
Among the nine parcels in consideration is the historic Heath’s Dairy Farm on the northeast corner of Route 9W and Wemple Road. The family farm once provided a farm store and home milk delivery since it first opened for business in 1920. Before closing in 1987, area school children would visit the farm as a lesson to learn where their milk comes from. Town records confirmed that the surrounding fields have been used for agriculture since the Revolutionary War, but it’s believed the lands have been farmed for quite longer.
One of two 11-acre lots along Wemple Road would connect to an 8-acre piece of landlocked property the Town purchased in 2019. This would halt further development from occurring along the southern corner of Wemple Road, west of Route 9W. Construction on a 96-unit multifamily development is underway just across the street.
The largest of the parcels includes a 122-acre lot adjacent to the Van Rensselaer Forest Wildlife Preserve managed by the First Reformed Dutch Church of Bethlehem on Route 9W, extending east beyond the New York state Thruway.
Town Supervisor David VanLuven said the land purchase would be one of the most significant farmland conservation efforts in Hudson Valley area. An environment advocate before joining the Town Board six years ago, he said in June that the idea had aligned with the Town’s long-term goal for greenspace preservation.
Since the land purchase was first proposed in May, the Town has garnered apparent support from half a dozen entities, including the American Farmland Trust, Scenic Hudson and the New York League of Conservation Voters.
The Albany County Farm Bureau contends that the fund is being misappropriated to preserve open space, not to save farmland. Its representatives point out that the fund was intended for tax easements and not land purchases.
The local branch of the statewide lobby group has also issued a dissension against the plan, arguing that the move will take needed taxes away from the Ravena Coeymans Selkirk School District while describing a “vagueness” surrounding the Town’s plans overall.
“People in this town want to preserve open space. Can anyone really say they’re against open space?” asked Nancy Neff, a member of the farm bureau. “The problem is that the only funding available is restricted to farmland. So in an effort to acquire open space, we are robbing the overindulged fund that was conveniently established to purchase conservation easements on active private farmland.”
