Editorial
200 big ones

Ashburnham officials and representatives of the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust are to be lauded for their persistent, and ultimately successful, efforts to preserve more than 200 acres off Russell Hill Road.

The fear was that this prime parcel, which the trust reportedly purchased from a private resident for $700,000, could have gone under the bulldozer, as have so many other large tracts in Central Massachusetts.

With dwindling land, the reality of preserving open space for conservation, habitat and watershed protection, and passive recreation is an encouraging development. The prospect of these 205 acres, or most of them anyway, being turned into housing not only would have meant the loss of a natural resource, but added costs for school, police, DPW and other municipal services.

The lure for landowners to sell to a developer is understandable. Often, the property represents their investment for retirement, and fetching a sound payback is critical to their future. Fiscal times being what they are, it's not always possible for a municipality to take advantage of their right-of-first-refusal when a major parcel is removed from state protection, and, certainly, meeting the price of a private developer is a challenge.

Similar efforts are being waged in neighboring towns. In Sterling, a coalition of public and private groups has tried for years to convince the owner of 300 acres, property that includes the Sterling Airport, to sell to them rather than to a developer. In Princeton, town officials as well as neighbors to a picturesque 168-acre parcel known as the Bentley land have been intent on convincing the builder to create a subdivision that is more aesthetically and environmentally sensitive than the one proposed.

Thanks to an innovative combination of grants and private donations, Ashburnham will be able to take control of the Russell Hill Road acreage from Mount Grace. When it comes to land acquisition, typically municipalities win some, and lose a lot, which makes this particular win that much sweeter.