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Deadlines Looming For Open Space Purchases

Utah Open Lands

The clock is ticking to raise the last two-plus million dollars to purchase the development rights on the last farm in the Snyderville Basin as well as an historic dairy farm pasture at the base of Thaynes Canyon. On Friday, the property owner of the Osguthorpe family agreed to reduce the price by another half million dollars with the hopes that they won’t have to sell the property to a private developer.  KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher has more.

For almost two years, the Summit Land Conservancy has worked to raise $5.6 million to preserve the 158-acre Osguthorpe Ranch – just  north of Old Ranch Road.  As of Friday, the Conservancy was still $800-thousand short.

More than 900 private donations have come in totaling more than $3.5 million. The Natural Resources Conservation Service has pledged $8.8 million to keep the property as farmland. The Osguthorpe family has already agreed to write off $3.5 million from the total price. Last Friday they agreed to another half-million dollar contribution. The conservation easement on the property has been assessed at $17.75 million.

Summit Land Conservancy director Cheryl Fox says the transaction has to close by March 31st or those federal dollars disappear. 

“The terms of our cooperative agreement with the federal government say we need to have everything ready to go by March 31st,” Fox said. “And that’s powerful incentive for that $8.8 million.  The longer this gets drawn out and doesn’t close, the family is required to pay interest on those loans so we would like to get it done.  And that also reduces their, essentially reduces, the amount that they’re going to be able to realize at the end of this transaction. 

With hopes that the money could be raised to keep the property as a farm, the Osguthorpe family took out a loan last year to pay off a pledge that the family’s patriarch had bequeathed to his alma mater.

But the deadline to either close on the conservation easement is looming. The family has said that if the rest of the money can’t be raised, then they’ll have to put the property on the market in order to pay off their loan.

Fox says momentum has picked up recently, but even with the family agreeing to reduce what has to be raised, there’s a lot of work to do in the next month.

“We’ve had some really important gifts in the last  couple of weeks,” Fox said. “We have some matching and challenges grants and I think that -- I think it’s going to happen. I feel like – there was a long time where I felt like I was pushing a very heavy cart up hill and I think we’ve summited and we’re on the downhill now.”

Meanwhile the efforts to save the Armstrong Snow Ranch Pastures - one of the last pieces of unprotected agriculture property within the Park City limits – is also facing a March 31st deadline.

In November, Park City voters agreed to bond for $3-million to help purchase the conservation easement for the 19 acres just west of the Park City golf course. The total purchase price for the conservation easement is $6 million. But as Park City Mayor Andy Beerman notes, this is not a done deal.

“There is significant amount of fundraising that still needs to be done and it needs to happen quickly,” Beerman said. “They’ve got the deadline on that  I believe is the end of March and they still have $1.4 million to raise towards that match. I had intended to at the State of the City and I’ll do I now… I want to make a strong call to action to this community, that we need to once again unfortunately reach into our pocketbooks if we want to protect this land. I think it’s a key parcel – it would be awful if we saw that developed. So, I hope everyone can be generous and help us get it done.”
 

The property is currently zoned for 3 lots an acre. If successful, the conservation easement would strip all development from the property.

“There’s a beautiful historic barn out there - it’s the pastures in front of that,” Beerman said. “It’s a piece of land that could be slated for somewhere between 30 and 40 large homes if its developed. The Conservation easement will allow that to continue as ranching property. So, it will not see any development.  We are currently talking with the Armstrong family about allowing some winter access across that land so we can get into trails above it. But the details aren’t worked out on that. But I’m fairly confident we’re going to be able to come up with some uses. But primarily this is to prevent development and to keep the nice aesthetic values and to continue to see ranching on that land.

Summit Land Conservancy at wesaveland.org is the agency accepting donations for the Osguthorpe parcel. You can contribute to save the Armstrong Snow Ranch Pastures at utahopenlands.org