Residents trying to save Churchill club from development with land trust help
A once- exclusive country club has spent most of the past decade returning to nature — 100 acres in Churchill, 48 in Penn Hills.
Two years ago, Renee Dolney, a resident of nearby Blackridge, called the Allegheny Land Trust seeking its help in preserving the land, which had been the Churchill Valley Country Club for about 80 years.
She wanted to save it from development proposed by Zokaites Properties, which had purchased the land in 2014, according to the Allegheny County real estate website.
The price listed by the county was $ 1. Dana Zokaites, reached by phone to clarify, hung up without commenting.
The Allegheny Land Trust responded not just to Ms. Dolney but also to hundreds of people who visit what now looks like a nature preserve: It committed to buying the property for $ 3 million and has so far raised $ 1.15 million. About $ 130,000 was donated by 600 people who live around the site, said Lindsay Dill, the land trust’s spokesperson.
“We saw that the community was using it, that it already has accessible trails,” Ms. Dill said. “There are 95,000 people who live within 3 miles of this site.”
The land trust has acquired more than 2,700 forested, scenic and flood- prone acres in the county over the past 26 years, protecting them in perpetuity and, in many cases, remediating streams and land damaged by acid mine drainage and other environmental abuses.
Those sites include Wingfield Pines in Upper St. Clair, the Bradford Woods Reserve, Sycamore Island in the Allegheny
River and Dead Man’s Hollow, the trust’s first foray into land preservation. Dead Man’s Hollow comprises 450 acres of rugged land along the Great Allegheny Passage — the bike trail that connects Pittsburgh with Cumberland, Md. — and along the Youghiogheny River in the Boston section of Elizabeth Township.
On a beautiful recent morning, Ms. Dolney and two other champions of the Churchill Valley site, Emily Golling and Maria Swarts, both of Penn Hills, joined Ms. Dill in showing off the site.
There are small footpaths, but the main path — a 5- mile loop — is wide enough for a golf cart, which makes it accessible for bicyclists, wheelchairs and families pushing strollers.
“This will go from being an exclusive space to being a place for everyone,” Ms. Dill said.
For about 80 years, the Churchill Valley Country Club was a draw for many Westinghouse executives, and the Westinghouse Corp. underwrote much of its operations.
“This would be a first- ofitskind site for us: our first country club,” Ms. Dill said. “But there are several others around the country that other land trusts have bought.”
The land was stripmined last century, and acid mine drainage has been a condition of Chalfont Run, which cuts through the site.
That stream is also floodprone, said the women who visit the site daily. That’s another reason the land trust saw the value in conservation of the site: to help mitigate flooding in surrounding communities.
Chalfont Run is part of the Turtle Creek flood plain.
“A green space this size is able to absorb floodwater, sparing roadways and storm sewers,” Ms. Dill said.
A heavy rain in July a year ago washed out bridges over Chalfant Run. One bridge lay in the water. It had to have passed over another bridge to get there because its width would not have allowed it to pass under. The force of that rushing water also tore out the steel underpinnings of another bridge, twisting it as if it had been made of tin.
The land trust has until next March to raise the remaining money toward the purchase, Ms. Dill said.
It has several grant requests out, she added, to the the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Department of Community and Economic Development and the Allegheny County Redevelopment Authority.
The land trust also accepts donations on its website.
Some grants depend on the support of elected officials. Rep. Anthony DeLuca — who represents the 32nd House District, which includes Penn Hills — said he “wasn’t advocating for it. I’m not against open space or recreation, but we have a school district and community that needs more tax base.
“That’s ideal property to develop. I tried to put gas wells on it, but we lost that to regulations. We have trails in Boyce Park. We have Penn Hills Park. You can’t tell me that Penn Hills won’t have some obligation” to provide services on the former golf course.
Mr. DeLuca said he doesn’t remember flooding on the site when it was a country club.
Walking the path, it is hard to imagine this was a golf course. It has huge expanses of goldenrod and other wildflowers, reeds and rushes, long stands of pin oaks and conifers, and thousands of other mature trees.
Along the walk, someone spotted a hawk and pointed up, and everyone stopped to witness the great bird wafting along on the breeze, circling, circling, as the sun illuminated the pattern of its underside and wings.
“We have seen a number species of raptors here,” Ms. Swarts said. “Lots of red- winged blackbirds, scarlet tanagers, herons.”
At one point, a flat green space gave a hint to the former use. For whatever reason, it has remained reminiscent of a golf green.
“One thing we want to get across is how much of a community space this is,” Ms. Dolney said. “Hundreds of us love this place.”
“Many people who visit this space do what needs to be done,” Ms. Swarts said. The group stopped where she pointed out that a fallen branch from an overhanging tree had been cleared from the path. Chunks of the thick branch sat off to the side of the path, evidence that someone had brought a power saw to cut it up and move it.
Standing beside Chalfant Run, looking up at the hillside of trees, Ms. Swarts said, “Look at this! We could be in the Laurel Highlands.”
A former middle school science teacher, she said the stormwater issue is what got her involved in saving the site for nature and flood remediation efforts.
“It is a giant sponge” of stormwater, she said. “Also, in these eastern suburbs, we don’t have much green space. Boyce Park is miles away. I used to take my dog to Boyce Park, then I discovered this place — and it blew me away.”