Spending OK’d for farmland

A Special Town Meeting last month voted overwhelmingly to use $2.2 million from the town’s open space bond to cover part of the $5.1 million needed to purchase conservation and agricultural easements on 247 acres of the Route 133 farm.

“I think the vote tells the story that people in Ipswich care about open space,’’ said Patrick J. McNally, Board of Selectmen chairman.

Ipswich authorized the $10 million open space bond in 2000, and after tapping the funds for Maplecroft Farm will have about $1.2 million remaining in that authorization, according to McNally.

Ipswich has been working for more than a year with two land conservation groups, Essex County Greenbelt and the Trust for Public Land, along with the state to preserve the property.

McNally said the farm, which is between Route 133 and Argilla Road and owned by the Raymond family, “is one of the vistas we had in our master plan for about 20 years that we wanted to protect.’’

In August the Trust for Public Land announced it had agreed to pay the Raymond family $5.1 million for the easements, which bar future development on 247 acres of the approximately 290-acre property.

The trust has until a closing sched uled Feb. 15 to come up with the funds.

Under a tentative financing plan developed last summer, the town would cover $2.2 million of the cost, and Essex County Greenbelt would raise $500,000 from private donations. The remainder would come from the Department of Agricultural Resources and the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

David Santomenna, director of land conservation for Essex County Greenbelt, said his organization has raised $400,000 of the $500,000 in private funds needed.

“We are pretty close,’’ he said, though cautioning, “in any campaign, the last increment is always the toughest.’’

Christopher LaPointe, project manager with the Trust for Public Land, said the only other hurdle remaining for financing is to secure a vote by a state Department of Agricultural Resources board on Nov. 30 to approve that agency’s share. He said the vote is largely a formality, however, since the agency has informally committed the funds.

The property consists of open fields used for growing crops and raising cattle. It also has salt marsh and forests.

Santomenna said the farm is “one of those rare properties’’ that embodies his organization’s three goals of preserving important scenery, agricultural land, and wildlife habitat.

In addition to deer, coyotes, and other mammals, the farm provides homes for a rich array of birds.

“And the sheer scale of it just makes it a really compelling project for us,’’ he said.

“This is a signature landscape,’’ said LaPointe, adding that the property is also “pretty unique in Essex County in that it has a significant amount of prime farm land.’’

Santomenna praised the Raymonds, who initiated the preservation effort when they approached the town and conservation groups last year about a possible agreement.

“There aren’t very many towns we could have pulled this off in,’’ he said. “Ipswich is extraordinarily supportive of land conservation.’’

The agreement provides for an agricultural preservation easement on the 100 acres or so of land that has actively been farmed for many years by Marini Farms of Ipswich. The easement, which would be held by the town and the state, requires that the land continue to be farmed.

A separate conservation easement would be placed on the remaining 147 acres that encourages the land to be farmed but does not require it, Santomenna said.

The agreement also calls for granting an easement to the Essex County Trail Association for a public recreational trail through the property.

Another provision would grant a three-year lease to the Ipswich Youth Soccer Association to use an approximately 8-acre section of the farm for soccer fields. The group currently uses the fields through an informal arrangement with the owner.

The Raymond family maintains three homes on the 43 acres outside the conservation area. The agreement would allow the family to build two additional houses, one inside the 247 acres, which is the only exception to the restriction against future building on the land.

Santomenna said much work remains to finalize the preservation effort, but “we are incredibly pleased to be where we are.’’