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ORANGE COUNTY <br />BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS <br />ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT <br />Meeting Date: January 23, 2007 <br />Action Agenda <br />Item No. (o ' q <br />SUBJECT: Resolution for Acceptance of Conservation Easement Donation (Penny) <br />DEPARTMENT: Environment and Resource PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N) No <br />Conservation <br />ATTACHMENTS INFORMATION CONTACT: <br />Draft Resolution David Stancil; 245-2590 <br />Location Map Rich Shaw, 245-2591 <br />Project Area Map <br />Site Map <br />Draft Conservation Easement <br />PURPOSE: To consider a resolution approving the acceptance of a conservation easement <br />for land owned by Wade and Carolyn Penny to protect open space and wildlife habitat <br />adjacent to the New Hope Creek corridor. <br />BACKGROUND: The Lands Legacy Program works with landowners and other conservation <br />partners to protect the County's most important natural and cultural resources. Through this <br />program, the County uses a variety of voluntary means to protect lands, including <br />conservation agreements with private landowners. Protected lands include riparian buffers, <br />natural areas and wildlife habitat, prime farmland, and historic/cultural sites. Orange County <br />has protected 1,700 acres since the inception of Lands Legacy in April 2000. <br />In 1992, Orange County, Chapel Hill, Durham County and City of Durham adopted the New <br />Hope Corridor Open Space Master Plan, which called for the preservation of lands along New <br />Hope Creek as it traverses from central Orange County to Jordan Lake. One of the priorities <br />identified in the New Hope Master Plan, and in the current Lands Legacy Action Plan, is a <br />one-mile segment of New Hope Creek from Erwin Road south to the Durham County line. A <br />planned New Hope Preserve would protect a land corridor with public footpaths that would <br />link Duke Forest trails to planned trails in Durham County. <br />Orange County (in cooperation with the Triangle Land Conservancy and the State of NC) <br />recently acquired 26.5 acres from the Trinity School, which was the final section of land <br />needed to complete the planned public trail corridor along New Hope Creek. The attached <br />project area map shows the acquisitions that have occurred in this area since 2002. <br />Wade and Carolyn Penny are long-time owners of property along Pickett Road in both <br />Orange and Durham counties. They were strong proponents of the New Hope Master Plan <br />adoption in the early 1990s and have been in the forefront of subsequent land conservation <br />efforts in their immediate vicinity. In June 2006, the Pennys sold 22 acres of their New Hope