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ORANGE COUNTY <br />BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS <br />ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT <br />Meeting Date: November 3, 2004 <br />Action Agen a <br />Item No. -q <br />SUBJECT: Approval of Contract to Purchase Real Property -Julia Blackwood <br />DEPARTMENT: Environment and Resource PUBLIC HEARING: (YIN) No <br />Conservation <br />ATTACHMENT(S): <br />1) Location Map <br />2) Site Map <br />3) Jtarisdictional Map <br />4) Offer to Purchase and Contract <br />INFORMATION CONTACT: <br />David Stancil, 245-2590 <br />Rich Shaw, 245-2590 <br />TELEPHONE NUMBERS: <br />Hillsborough 732-8181 <br />Chapel Hill 968-4501 <br />Durham 688-7331 <br />Mebane 336-227-2031 <br />PURPOSE: To approve a contract to purchase approximately 67 acres of land from .lulia <br />Blackwood for a future county park site, <br />BACKGROUND: Julia Blackwood owns a 69-acre tract located west of Millhouse Road in <br />Chapel Hill Township, The County intends to acquire this land for a new park that would <br />feature a combination of active and low-impact recreational uses. The property is bounded <br />to the east by Millhouse Road, to the south by the Orange County landfill, to the south and <br />west by Duke Forest (Blackwood Division), and to the north by large-lot residential properties. <br />A location map is provided as an attachment, <br />The property has been in the Blackwood family since the mid-1700s. Mrs. Blackwood <br />resides in the current farmhouse (ca. 1941) surrounded by a number of well-preserved <br />outbuildings. A previous house on this site burned down in 1940, and the property was <br />managed as a family farm until 1996. <br />Outside of the farmstead area, the property features open agricultural fields and forestland, <br />Most of the eastern half of the property has been used in recent years for growing hay, <br />although some of those fields are filling in with young loblolly pine and sweet gum. The <br />western half of the property features mature oak-hickory forest on the eastern slope of <br />Blackwood Mountain. A small portion of the woodlands is part of the Blackwood Mountain <br />Natural Area, identified in the County's Inventory of Natural Areas and Wildlife Habitats. <br />Most of that natural area is already protected within the adjacent Duke Forest property, <br />