Land Protection, Now or Never: A Newcomer’s Perspective
When I moved to Otsego County from South Carolina one frozen February, people often asked me, “why?” It was a bit of a stumper, I’d admit, while learning how to scrape snow and salt off my car. There were many personal and practical reasons of course, but best I could come up with was “you don’t know how good you have it here.”
I have lived much of my adult life in the rapidly suburbanizing Southeast—in landscapes that changed drastically over the short years I spent in them. I watched farms I loved paved over, rural roads straightened and widened, and creeks channelized. Over my visits to Otsego County the past 16 years, the land has remained largely unchanged. Here, I can tromp through boggy creek bottoms with meandering streams. Most of the ridgelines are covered in trees—not houses—and the hillsides all sprout springs.
Prior to moving North, I worked for land trusts in two quickly growing Southern cities—Nashville, Tennessee and Greenville, South Carolina. Both of these cities made a lot of progressive changes and investments in their downtowns to accommodate the influx of population. However, many newcomers found comfort in the new suburban neighborhoods just outside the cities. Land and housing was cheaper, the schools were bright and new, the countryside was neat and scenic and offered seemingly endless space for everyone.
What happened next is a familiar story: an older farmer would die and his kids, now living elsewhere, would sell the property, in many cases, to developers. Developers and land speculators would show up on doorsteps and offer unheard of, unrefusable prices for land. Once insurmountable problems, like steep slopes, inaccessibility, or periodic flooding—were magically solved. Literally overnight, heavy equipment would appear, roads were paved, and streets took on names that suggested the pastoral scenes they consumed.
I walked through a development with gigantic million dollar “meadow mansions,” ringing with the sound of hammers and buzzing saws, and stepped in a cow pie. It was still fresh from a few short months before when only cows lived there. Helicopters flew over spotting the next ideal spot and savvy well-funded developers bulldozed small rural county planning authorities to get their developments not only built, but serviced by new, fast, taxpayer funded roads, water and sewer lines.
It was tragic to think about all that was lost, and so quickly. And these changes had real and disastrous consequences. The land clearing, rooftops, driveways and concrete stopped rainwater from infiltrating slowly, and dangerous flash floods became more common.
In 2010, the Cumberland River flooded huge portions of downtown Nashville for the first time in the city’s history. The images of long-haul trucks stuck in several feet of water on interstates, and flooding up to the doorways of famous downtown music joints, made national news.
Even in areas where zoning controlled parcel sizes to larger, one to five acre lots, change was evident. Most of these “farm-ettes,” while deemed a more desirable “look” for rural regions, involved a new well and often a pond.
Over time, all this parcelization and new infrastructure lowered the water table. Springs that had run for centuries stopped, babbling creeks’ average volume decreased significantly for most the year (only to swell and scour after a big rain). Even with an increase in annual rainfall some years, the water was now all violently running off, rather than gently washing over the landscape.
And most tragic of all: There could have been another way. The sprawl into the country far outpaced the rate of population growth, fueled in part by shortsighted policies that incentivized short term property tax gains over sustainable growth.
Don’t get me wrong, both Nashville and Greenville are lovely, vibrant places. A lot of amazing conservation work went in to saving the last great open spaces; projects that at first seemed controversial and impossible paid off ten-fold in protecting the regions’ desirability and quality of life.
But what I learned was that nothing is “safe” from quick and irresponsible development. It can happen anywhere that residents are not paying attention. Lovely villages like Cherry Valley, Cooperstown, and Gilbertsville do not look the way they do by accident. Forward-thinking land-owners have consciously protected the wooded hills, healthy creeks and scenic pastures you see on entering those towns, or looking up from main streets. And it is these attributes that attract new residents to our area in the first place.
However, I’m afraid with the twin threats of climate change and a global pandemic, the Leatherstocking region could find itself in the crosshairs of growth patterns it doesn't want.
The recent increase in real estate transactions is encouraging. This is a region where outmigration and loss of economic opportunity has characterized the last few decades. But we may soon find ourselves at a tipping point where we can either steer this growth in a helpful way, or lose our landscape to random and rapacious sprawl.
There is still much to do. I am very excited about all the new residents, life and increased activity in the Otsego region. Real estate agents and contractors have been busy, old houses are getting new life, and there are many new families. We need your to help engage them, and to undertake more projects that preserve our open spaces, protect our farmland, and maintain our clean water supply.
While there are many worthy environmental concerns at the moment, the Land Trust is the only organization that permanently protects private land. This takes time and money, forethought and planning. While you are social distancing and enjoying time outside, take note of how the falling leaves reveal the shapes of hills and valleys in the distance.
Help us make sure they are still here for future generations.
By May Leinhart, Stewardship Associate