Cook County Forest Preserve buys Barrington Hills land to link properties
The Forest Preserves of Cook County board has approved a $2.15 million purchase of 24 acres in Barrington Hills that will link the district's recently acquired Horizon Farms property with the nearby Spring Lake Preserve.
"As outlined in our Land Acquisition Plan, making purchases near existing parcels of Forest Preserve property benefits the plants and wildlife in the surrounding area," Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said in a news release. "Natural connections to larger areas act as buffers between developed areas and the habitats we are trying to protect."
Forest preserve spokeswoman Lambrini Lukidis said some of the newly purchased land is developed and some is not. The forest preserve will investigate the possibility of adding a path on the new land to connect Spring Lake to Horizon Farms, but no plan is final yet, she added.
According to the forest preserve, once this and other recent acquisitions are final, the district' will own 69,337 acres. The forest preserve plans to expand their footprint to 90,000 acres over the next 25 years.
"Even adding smaller pieces of land to our holdings are important to our overall portfolio," said General Superintendent Arnold Randall. "We've worked to identify properties in close proximity to our current natural areas in order to fill in the gaps in our current holdings."
Lukidis said the public should have trail access to Horizon Farms soon. A state appellate court on Tuesday upheld a lower court's decision last year that cleared the way for the district to buy the 400-acre site for $14.5 million.
The previous owners of the equestrian estate, Meryl Squires Cannon and Richard Kirk Cannon, brought a lawsuit alleging BMO Harris Bank - which acquired the land in foreclosure - and the forest preserve district didn't have legal standing to complete the sale, because the Cannons were still trying to work out a deal to get out of the 2009 foreclosure and reclaim the land.