On Tuesday, January 3 the Easton Town Council voted unanimously to approve Ordinance 793, which authorizes moving forward with the purchase of Easton Woodland Park. Easton Woodland Park is a 197-acre parcel of land on the eastern side of Oxford Road, near Cooke’s Hope.
The Town of Easton is acquiring this land in order to preserve the allotted area, and to provide an enjoyable recreational space for its citizens. The property would become the largest public park in Easton, and features natural trails through wooded areas. The Town currently has several community parks with sports fields and/or playground equipment for active use, but only one other community park for passive use, John F. Ford Park, which is not wooded.
Mayor Bob Willey noted “This park will be a great benefit to the town and a wonderful place for families to enjoy for years to come. It is a unique opportunity to preserve pristine woodland that once gone we would never see again. We have a chance to protect the land, help the town, and improve the quality of life for all residents.”
The Easton Woodland Park acquisition would serve to protect the plot from future development, safeguard native plant and animal species, and would satisfy a significant portion of the restoration requirements for Maryland’s Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit. The MS4 Permit aims to advance Chesapeake Bay restoration while reducing flooding and making communities more resilient to the effects of climate change.
Town Engineer Rick VanEmburgh stated “Easton Woodland Park is a fantastic opportunity to preserve Easton’s woodlands, and to meet some of the requirements necessary for MS4 program compliance.”
The Woodland Park lot is being sold by Alliance Development Corporation to the Town of Easton for the amount of $5,095,000. For the purchase of the land, the Town of Easton has applied for a Program Open Space grant that would partner them with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Talbot County. If approved, the Program Open Space grant would cover more than 96% of the expenses.
Formally recognized in 1710 by the Province of Maryland, Easton is the county seat of Talbot County. Encompassing over 11 square miles including almost two dozen public parks and open spaces, the town has a growing population of over 17,000 residents. For more information please visit: eastonmd.gov.
Reed Fawell 3 says
Is the $5,095,000 expenditure of tax payer dollars here to allow for commercial development otherwise impossible in the two of Easton?
Darrell parsons says
Great news!
John Dean says
This is great news. Congratulations to the Easton Town Council for seizing this opportunity. Easton will benefit for many years to come thanks to their foresight.
Reed Fawell 3 says
Whether this purchase is great news of not is open for debate depending on the circumstances. For example, if the town’s purchase of this ground, not zoned for dense development, opens up for the town the opportunity to rezone a tract for dense development nearer to a critical intersection (say the Oxford / Bypass intersection),that will threaten congestion along the entire road from the by/pass to town of Oxford and congest the Bypass as well, I suggest that this is a very unwise expenditure of taxpayer money.
Steve Lingeman says
My wife Phyllis and I moved to Easton 8 years ago because the town has been managed so very well for all the years of Bob Willey’s tenure. It takes foresight to make these things happen and maintain simple continuity. This purchase will keep the intersection of Rt. 333 and the bypass less congested as new housing is added along Oxford road. Well done.
Barbara Denton says
That is all well and good as long as the Town of Easton understands what in perpetuity means. The document for the approval and outline of Easton Club states that the agreement is in perpetuity. Well guess what! Now the new owners of the golf course want to change it and the Town of Easton seems to not understand what in perpetuity means. Perhaps their memories should be refreshed before this deal goes through.
No one is mentioning the huge development that is being considered right next door to the proposed Woodland Park and across the street from the first entrance into Easton Club. Look up the Poplar Hill development and you may develop some skepticism as to Easton’s motives. Easton loves grabbing land which the County cannot refuse giving up and making the rest of us suffer for it. Stay tuned for the next big fight over Poplar Hill.
Trust but verify. Easton lost the trust a long time ago and is doing nothing to regain it.
Harriett Goldman says
Kudos!! Well done.
John Hodges says
I am sure Praeger has an ulterior motive for development of this property. The property needs to go in a land trust to ensure its protection from future development.
Reed Fawell 3 says
In America, the typical way that towns and counties have become gridlocked since the 1950s is that they high-jack interstate highways and by-passes for their main streets, flooding those long distance roads with local traffic. This theft over time becomes toxic to the health of these towns because it throttles the ability of interstate and intrastate traffic to quickly pass through and/or around these towns, and forces that traffic to jam up in the town instead, as those roads flood with local traffic as well the inter/intra state traffic they were built to serve.
This most always hobbles the town’s future, while it harms everyone passing though, visiting, and living in the town as well. A classic example of this self induced gridlock is when Fairfax County in the mid 1970s, declared the Washington Beltway to be its “Main Street.” As a result, within 10 years, the Capital Beltway through Fairfax County became gridlock or near so from morning to night. It has remained that way ever since. This happened when and because the business community (primarily the real estate developers) gained control of the Fairfax County government, including those bodies making land use decisions.
Today, in Talbot County the town of Easton is doing the same with regard to Route 50 and the Easton By-pass, just like the Lakeside project and old town of Trappe is attempting to do the same with Route 50. These three “ill-advised takings” will work in tandem to compound traffic congestion throughout the region, from Route 50/301 up north to Route 50 through Cambridge on the far side of the Choptank River.
Here the adverse impact of these decisions will be quickly and harshly felt by reason of the severe constraints imposed by local geography on our ability to expand critical road infrastructure in lands that the water intertwine, creating rivers, creeks, bays, and marshes, amid peninsulas. Here, with the margins for gross error so thin, the resultant damage of over-development becomes cumulative, indeed exponential.
The parkland purchase discussed above, if not properly handled, will facilitate this over-development at one of the county’s most critical intersection of two critical roads, the Easton By-Pass and Oxford Road. From this intersection, gridlock will expand outwards, adversely impacting thousands of homes. This will ultimately over time include homes along Oxford Road, and Island creek, and back north of the Easton By-Pass to St. Michael’s Road and beyond. Just like happened in Fairfax County is the space of a decade.
We must the these ill-advised land use and development decisions now. As they can’t be undone, in a place so fragile as ours.
Donna Driver says
This great! When I moved to Talbot Co. just 3 yrs ago I was sad to see no open space parks for those who enjoy the woods and wild life on the eastern shore. There were plenty of sports and play ground parks but no natural parks. Can’t wait to explore the park
Susan M. Basham says
I applaud the Town of Easton for preserving and protecting this land. This action will be a long-term benefit to residents in Easton and surrounding areas.
Paul Rybon says
This approval doesn’t seem to make sense. The town already owns some wooded tracts much closer in for rec purposes such as the deep woods around the northern rails-to-trails extension.
Christian Christoffers says
This is fantastic news. Thank you for making this possible for the Town of Easton.