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CUMBERLAND — Maryland’s Board of Public Works on Wednesday approved $750,000 to create the 30,640-acre Mountain Ridge Rural Legacy Area, a designation that will preclude large, obtrusive development on private lands.
“It is good for the citizens of the county,” said Phil Hager, Allegany County’s planning coordinator. “We are projecting that landowners who willingly grant easements will receive about $2,700 per acre.”
The Rural Legacy Program preserves large, contiguous tracts of land and enhances natural resources, agricultural, forestry and environmental protection while supporting sustainable land for natural resource-based industries, as stated on the Maryland Department of Natural Resources web site.
Until now, Allegany County had been the state’s only subdivision without a rural legacy area.
“We will have a year to negotiate with landowners and spend the $750,000,” Hager said. “Some development will still be allowed. Say a landowner has three children who may want to build homes on a piece of the property. Those kinds of things can become parts of the easements.”
The rural legacy area is on the western side of the county, stretching from the Pennsylvania line almost to Keyser, W.Va.
Almost one-third of the area is already in public ownership: Dans Mountain Wildlife Management Area, 9,012 acres and Dan’s Mountain State Park, 485 acres. In addition, a 153-acre Fort Hill Preserve, owned by The Nature Conservancy, is also included.
“We think this is a great program for the county,” said Donnelle Keech of The Nature Conservancy. “It keeps property in private ownership, but protects public values.”
Keech had earlier, and unsuccessfully, requested sponsorship by the county government of a rural legacy area elsewhere in Allegany County.
Other portions of the county within the rural legacy area boundaries include: large acreages bordered by state Route 36 on the south and the Pennsylvania line on the north; Haystack Mountain both north and south of Interstate 68; Dan’s Mountain north of the wildlife management area and south of Interstate 68; Piney Mountain.
Hager said the goal is to spend the allocation this year, bring as many landowners in the fold as possible, and then request additional funds from the Board of Public Works in future years.
“This has been in the works for more than three years,” Hager said. “When we had a public meeting, a show of hands by the landowners who attended indicated they all want to be involved.”
Hager said the key to the success of the effort is that it is voluntary.
“People are turned off when a regulation is forced upon them, but become interested when their action is voluntary and they can be compensated,” he said.
In the county’s application to the state, it is reported that 5,814 acres within the rural legacy area are already developed.
In addition, funds from other preservation programs have already stopped development on another 10,055 acres with the area.
The county projects that almost $15 million in Rural Legacy Program funding will be needed to purchase easements during the next 10 years.
Hager said the program also helps to protect cultural, historical and archeological values.
Shawn Clotworthy, a rural legacy program coordinator at DNR, said, “We are very excited to have a new rural legacy area, the first in Allegany County and the first in the Ridge and Valley Physiographical Province.
Contact Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.
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