After 10 Years, Tract Wins Protective Status

THE decade-long efforts of a homeowners’ group, town officials in Cortlandt and a developer have finally resulted in the preservation of one of the last large unprotected tracts of open space in the county.

The conservation easement, which the Westchester Land Trust brokered, ensures that the nearly 700-acre property — where a sprawling housing development was to be built — will remain open space permanently.

It is the largest easement ever recorded in the county, said Paul Gallay, the executive director of the land trust, which is in Bedford Hills.

“This is huge for Westchester and extremely important in terms of preserving flora and fauna and protecting the New York City water supply,” Mr. Gallay said of the tract, which is in the Croton Watershed.

About half of the property drains into the Croton Reservoir; the rest feeds into Furnace Brook and the Hudson River.

The property, which ecologists refer to as a biodiversity hub, includes a 43-acre pond, Dickerson Mountain (at 740 feet one of the highest peaks in the county), outcroppings, hills, brooks, vernal pools and swamps. It is also home to bobcats, loons, beavers, spotted salamanders, rare birds, a colony of box turtles and other animals.

Once owned by Jacob Langeloth, an industrialist and philanthropist, the property — named Valeria, for his wife — was developed in 1921 as a weekend resort for working-class New York City residents. The Langeloths’ foundation sold the land in the late 1970s to a developer, who converted space in some of the resort’s buildings to 47 condos and built 33 more, but went bankrupt before executing plans to build 500 more homes throughout the site.

By the time A.V.R. Homebuilders in Yonkers acquired the land in 1997, the 40-square-mile town, which includes the villages of Croton-on-Hudson and Buchanan, had “dramatically changed its philosophy about land use,” said Linda D. Puglisi, Cortlandt’s supervisor.

“We instituted many more restraints in order to preserve open space,” said Ms. Puglisi, who recalled a decade’s worth of public hearings and environmental reviews aimed at whittling A.V.R.’s proposal to build 250 units. Ultimately, 147 attached condo units clustered on a small section of the property were approved — “which was a lot better than the 500 that were approved in the 1970s,” she said.

Even though it may seem counterintuitive, the reduced number of units is more advantageous for the developer, said Mark Eickelbeck, the executive vice president of A.V.R., which acquired the property from a bank that had foreclosed on it.

“By clustering the units and creating a conservancy for the open space, we can sell the homes for more, a lot more than we would have otherwise,” he said.

Construction has just begun on two-bedroom condos that will sell from the low $700,000s, he said.

Under the agreement, the Dickerson Pond Association, a homeowners’ group of 80 families that lobbied for conserving the open space, will own 650 acres, said Charles Holt, the association’s president. Mr. Holt, an executive for an Internet company, lives in one of the condos in the converted hotel, which abuts the pond.

The town will own 46 acres, which will be used for hiking and other recreation, Ms. Puglisi said.

The Westchester Land Trust will oversee the property to ensure that its diverse ecology is preserved.

Four years ago, the area was designated a biodiversity hub by the Wildlife Conservation Society-Metropolitan Conservation Alliance in its Croton-to-Highlands Biodiversity Study. Because the box turtles’ habitat will be disrupted by the new construction, the developer has agreed to work with reptile specialists to recreate the turtles’ habitat and monitor their welfare for 10 years after they have been moved.

The Valeria agreement brings the total number of acres protected by the land trust to 5,700. Of that, more than 2,500 acres have been protected in partnership with towns, the county, the state, other land preservation organizations and private donors.

By ELSA BRENNER

New York Times