Conservation Commission Advocates Minton Land Purchase

Matt Rittenhouse
Tri-Town Times
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SANDOWN – Up for voter consideration this March is a request to purchase the 138-acre Minton Mill site in order to put the land under permanent conservation easement.

If the land were purchased by the town, the Conservation Commission has plans to tend the Minton property in much the same way as the Town Forest.

“There has been a forestry plan on the Minton Property since it was purchased in the early 1950s, whose goal was to keep the forest healthy and to keep it as a pleasant, natural setting,” said Brian Butler, vice chairman of the Conservation Commission. “It wasn’t just, ‘Hey, I got a bunch of trees out back, let’s cut them.’ It was managed in a way so that it continually produced and remained healthy. (If the town votes to purchase the property), we’ll try to continue this process in the same way we’ve managed the Town Forest.”

Last year, a canopy cut was made in the town forest to let more light onto the forest floor, to allow plants that need more light to flourish. Last summer, after the canopy cut, a town forest awareness day was held, with about 50 people attending. The goal for the day was to clean the main skidder trail used to harvest trees during the canopy cut, and flag it for a future hiking trail, .

The conservation commission hopes to connect trails such as that one with the 2 miles of trails already on the Minton property.

“It’s what we’re all about,” Butler said of the conservation commission. “We want people out there enjoying the outdoors.”

The Minton land, which abuts the Town Forest, would create a 225-acre open space, something in keeping with a conservation commission goal to preserve large tracts of land.

“We don’t practice the shotgun approach,” Butler said. “We like to develop larger tracts of land. We look at wildlife corridors and where the properties are in relation to other properties, and choose from there.”

The Minton land, currently posted with “No Trespassing” signs, would be opened to passive recreation if purchased by the town. Passive recreation includes mountain biking, horseback riding, hunting and fishing.

As well as protecting 3,200 feet of the Exeter River that passes through the property, the purchase would give residents access to the river. Commission member Mark Traeger said the group would like to put in parking by Odell Bridge for fishing.

“Right now there isn’t any parking on the Exeter River except near the Fremont Road bridge, and during the summer, it can get very busy with people fishing off that bridge,” he said.

The conservation commission primarily uses its Conservation Fund to purchase land. The fund is supplied through money generated through the current use tax system. The Minton property, which is being offered to the town for $1.6 million, would use up almost all of the $670,000 currently in the fund, with $600,000 going to the actual purchase, and approximately $50,000 to pay for associated fees. Through a warrant article, the commission is asking the town to raise and appropriate the remaining $1 million.

The commission has stated it feels strongly enough about this purchase to exhaust its fund.

The property is being offered at 20 percent below its appraised value of $2 million. The Minton family approached the town with the offer because they desired to keep the rural nature of the town intact.

According to Butler, the Conservation Commission received an e-mail from the Chester Conservation Commission wishing it luck with acquiring the land and indicating it had never been offered such a sale.

The bond proposed to voters is for 20 years, and would raise residents’ taxes $.23 per $1,000 assessed value the first year. By the 20th year, the tax burden would be $.11 per $1,000.

Many residents who feel the pressure of ever increasing taxes say they do not want to see their taxes go up for this type of purchase. The conservation commission, however, thinks that while the purchase would raise taxes, preserving open space is necessary for the town.

“A well-balanced town has to have all of the different services,” Butler said. “For example, it needs a police station, a fire station, areas for sports, a certain amount of over 55 housing, and also land for open space.” Sandown’s Master Plan has hopes of putting 20 percent of the town’s land under conservation easement, and presently the town has 3.5 percent in that category. The Minton purchase would increase that amount to 4.5 percent.

Traeger believes the Minton open space is part of the necessary town infrastructure. “This property will balance growth in the town, and I think make people more proud of their town,” he said. “People don’t want to have to drive someplace else to recreate.”

He added that the property benefits also include school and town tax avoidance. Presently, of the $21.89 per $1,000 of tax burden, $17.45 goes to school taxes. Some of the attraction of purchasing open space is that it takes off the market land that could have been used for houses, with new students living there, thereby lowering the growth of school taxes.

“It gives the town some amenities while lowering the tax burden,” Traeger said. “We don’t have many businesses to offset our taxes.”

The conservation commission hopes to get information about the purchase to as many residents as possible. Butler urged anyone with questions to visit the commission website at www.sandowncc.org, and to contact commission members with their questions or concerns.

“We’re happy to talk with anyone about it. We’re just trying to get the information out. It’s all we can do,” Butler said. “You can’t unbuild the land, and they don’t make any more of it.”