North Barrington mulls buying open land

The Barrington Area Conservation Trust is asking North Barrington officials to share the cost of buying 34 acres of unincorporated land to help protect what it considers the site’s critical role to the local environment.

The Lake County site lies just north of Route 22, west of Rand Road and immediately east of North Barrington’s Lafferty Park.

Karen Yancey, executive director of Barrington Area Conservation Trust, said no part of the proposed purchase is being seen as an extension of Lafferty Park but rather as undeveloped conservation land.

Though a price is still being negotiated with the landowner, the cost of the wetland-heavy site is being estimated at $10,000 to $15,000 per acre, Yancey said.

The trust is hoping to split the cost of the site between its own members’ private contributions and North Barrington’s public funds.

North Barrington Village President Al Pino said his board has not set a firm time frame for a decision on the proposal but might at least discuss it at its meetings in either late February or late March.

Yancey said the Flint Creek Watershed Partnership completed a study in 2007 that showed the parcel was critical to the environmental health of the watershed. Though this was probably long the case, the reason for immediate action is that the landowner is only now putting the undeveloped site up for sale, Yancey said.

While the recession probably held off the threat of development in recent years, the site likely remained untouched even before that because its wetlands make it challenging for development, Yancey said.

But what might tempt future development now is the very thing that could help the conservation trust and North Barrington buy the land to keep it open space, she added.

“I think it requires the foresight of residents to recognize that land prices are at their lowest in decades,” Yancey said.

The trust’s money comes from both direct donations and fundraisers run by its nearly 400 members.

“Our donations come from all over the Barrington area,” Yancey said.

Though the environmental sensitivity identified by the 2007 study is backed up by Army Corps of Engineers protections, a major concern of the local groups is that laws could change or stop being enforced in the future, Yancey said.

If North Barrington agrees with the proposal, the plan would be to complete purchase this year and begin to apply for conservation grants.

Though grant money for land acquisition has become much rarer, state and federal money for conservation of land already owned is still reasonably available, Yancey said.