$571K spent to preserve part of golf course
NEW HANOVER » Township supervisors voted unanimously to spend more than a half-million dollars to prevent nearly 50 acres of the Hickory Valley Golf Club from ever being developed.
The money — $571,241.75 — comes from the township’s open space fund, which comes from an additional .15 mill earned income tax voters approved back in 2006.
The township did not buy part of the golf course, located on Ludwig Road, but rather the development rights for those particular acres through a legal vehicle known as a “conservation easement.”
The 47.54 acres are on the “Ambassador” part of the course at the golf club.
Township Solicitor Andrew Bellwoar said the parcels preserved are identified in the township’s open space plan.
The purpose of the purchase “is to keep the area open as opposed to being developed as homes,” said Bellwoar.
Supervisor’s Chairman Charles D. Garner Jr. explained “the township looked very carefully at the area in question. We focused on the part of the course that was most likely to be developed in the future.”
Supervisor W. Ross Snook, who heads up the township’s environmental advisory board, said the purchase will preserve “a great asset to the community.”
New Hanover has been identified by the Montgomery County Planning Commission as one of the fastest growing townships in the county.
In recent years, the supervisors have taken a harder line with developers, particularly those seeking to build more housing.
Snook has repeatedly said the township’s high water table leads to flooding as more and more impervious surfaces — roads, roofs, driveways — prevent the ground from absorbing the increasing intense storms that have plagued the northeast in recent years.
Two years ago, Garner warned that the supervisors must become more active if they want to preserve what’s left of New Hanover’s rural character.
“We’re starting to look like the eastern part of the county,” he said during a meeting in 2017.
Last year, the supervisors voted to spend $700,000 from the open space fund to preserve 33 acres of the Suloman Dairy Farm on Leidy Road between Swamp Pike and Buchert Road.
The purpose of the purchase “is to keep the area open as opposed to being developed as homes,” said Bellwoar.