Western Reserve Land Conservancy protects additional 189 acres in 2019
Portage County – As of January 2019 The Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC) and Portage Park District (PPD) have permanently preserved 200 additional acres of land in Portage Country. The preservation project, referred to as Tinkers Creek Greenway by WRLC and PPD, consists of two tracts of land: The 59-acre Bect tract and 130-acre Gressard tract. Both tracts are in Streetsboro, Ohio.
“The Beck project builds upon a corridor of nearly 300 acres of conservation land in the immediate area, including The Nature Conservancy’s Evans R. Beck Memorial Nature Preserve, Ohio Department of Natural Resource’s Gott Fen State Nature Preserve, the City of Streetsboro’s Wilcox Park, and more,” noted Chris Szell, director of conservation project management for the Land Conservancy in an article on WRLC’s website.
The Gressard tract property came from the late William Gressard, a long-time nature columnist for Ravenna’s Record-Courier. Gressard’s children say the family is excited to see the land preserved.
“The creation of this park is due to the vision of those who could see what a great asset this would be for Portage County and the residents,” said Robert Fageol Gressard in the same WRLC article. “I hope all who visit will enjoy the new park.”
Emily Bacha, Director of Communications and Marketing at Western Reserve Land Conservancy, describes the organization’s role as a non-profit land conservation organization that focuses on “creating thriving communities through the conservation of vibrant natural areas, the preservation of working farms and the creation of healthy cities.”
WRLC works as an acquisition agent, at times working with real estate to help purchase the lands or working at a grant funding capacity to help fund the purchase of land, said Bacha. Occasionally, Bacha says, the Conservancy will hold onto the land, or become the land’s owner.
For Tinkers Creek Greenway WRLC worked as a legal arbitrator, acquiring the Bect tract and passing its ownership to the PPD. WRLC also designed conservancy agreements for the tracts of land, specifying how the land is to be developed, putting legal restriction on certain activities in said land and helped create a legal agreement to maintain the Gressard tract as a park.
“The [Gressard] project provides tremendous value to the community by protecting rare and important ecosystems, protecting water quality, mitigating stormwater and creating a beautiful new public park for all to enjoy,” said PPD Executive Director Christine Craycroft when the preservation was announced.
Bradford Ehrhart, President of the Portage Development Board, echoed Craycroft’s positive take on the land’s conservation.
Ehrhart says that conserving land helps Portage County grow its workforce.
“Most businesses won’t make a big decision based on [quality of life] but they do make a decision based on availability of Workforce. Quality of life is in the eyes of the beholder. I think in the younger Generations […]–Millennial and Gen Z […] –there’s a lot of fondness for outdoor activity.”
Ehrhart says that conserving land could be a concern in the future when cities in Portage County run out of industrial land. Ehrhart used Kent as a current example of a city in Portage County without much industrial land available but says that there is an abundance of land still available in Portage County.
Studies of the economic effect of conserving land paint a positive picture for communities. An article in the Journal of Environmental and Resource Economics at Colby says that while land conservation may reduce GDP gains from businesses, conservation increases GDP from tourism, recreation, transportation and increases land value. A study by the Trust for Public Land, a conservancy group, states that, under certain conditions, the value of land adjacent to a park can be increased by 20%.
“The economics and environmental impact of an area… are tied together intimately,” says Lisa Regula, Kent Environmental Council President. “They are not in opposition to each other like is often framed in some venues but the two work together. If you have a strong environment, if you have Parks and Recreation, if you have conserved spaces, then that improves the property value in a space and that improved property value helps the city or jurisdiction where that land is located to better collect funding to fund things like schools, roads, safety etc.”
Regula says that though conserved land could be used for physical business development, conservation provides more benefits including lower cost of living, improved walkability and entertainment opportunities for citizens.
“When you have Parks and Recreation opportunities available people are willing to pay more money,” says Regula. “They’re willing to pay more for living in that space because they have those Parks and Recreation opportunities. If somebody is raising a family wants to be outdoors wants to be able to hike or bike on Trails [..] to be able to go out and enjoy nature here in Kent. That’s a great place to do it. They’re going to be more likely to come here for a job than someplace that doesn’t have those Recreation opportunities. So, they might be willing to pay a little bit higher price for a house to live here compared to […] someplace with fewer amenities.”
The Tinkers Creek Greenway joins eight other permanently preserved areas in Portage county.
For this story Aliah did an interview with Regula and Ehrhart. Aliah and Tristan both did an interview with Bacha.
Aliah developed the video component of this piece and created map. Tristan wrote the RPP.org segement of the piece, got all headshots from videos, and build the PDF interactive elements featured on the physical article.
Tweets:
Check out @AliahKeller and my story on https://t.co/pqCHF9LypL about #WesternReserveConservency protecting almost 200 additional acres in Portage Co! #Conservation #Environment
— Tristan Isham (@TristanIsham) March 11, 2019
The Western Land Conservancy conserved hundreds of acres of land in Portage County. Find out how in my story on https://t.co/CGmoFVgZuv #LandConservation
— Aliah Keller (@AliahKeller) March 11, 2019
