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Funding from Windham Crucial to the Future of Clark Farm

October 26, 2009 - WINDHAM -- Windham residents will decide on Nov. 3 if they want to borrow $1 million to preserve the Clark Farm on Swett Road, more than 550 acres of fields and forests with brooks, old stonewalls and trails for hiking and skiing.

The town funding is a critical piece of the $2.7 million project, which includes state and private dollars. The town's portion would protect 75 acres for wildlife habitat and recreation.

To repay the bond, the average property taxpayer in the town would contribute $10 a year or less over the next 20 years, said Town Manager Anthony Plante.

Plante said that under the town's comprehensive master plan, Clark Farm is intended to be rural land.

"While it's true that residential development adds to the community, with new homes come additional demands for services," Plante said. "Residential development isn't all bad. It's for the voters to decide."

The Maine Farmland Trust would contribute $568,000 to buy about half of the property and would find someone to farm it. Public access would be maintained for recreation, including hunting, hiking and snowmobiling.

"It's all undeveloped land that residents have used traditionally for the kinds of recreation activities that make Maine a special place," said Tim Glidden of Land for Maine's Future. "When you think of Windham being so close to Portland, it's remarkable there is this much land in an area that has seen so much development pressure."

Larry Clark, 68, and his wife, Kathryn, have felt that pressure. They own the property and raised two children in the farmhouse, which was built around the turn of the 18th century. He inherited the property from his father, who once raised beef cattle.

Clark, now retired, worked at a lumberyard and now tends to the land in his spare time, growing hay and cutting timber.

About a decade ago, the couple began talking with the Windham Land Trust about protecting the farm. Because of the project's size and complexity, they brought in the Trust for Public Land and the Belfast-based Maine Farmland Trust.

The Clarks spent more than six years working out the deal. Larry Clark said he has been on the land for most of his life and wants to continue living there.

"If this doesn't pass, it would be a big mistake on our part," Clark said. "If we sold to a developer we would have gotten a heck of a lot more money for the land."

The Clarks would continue to own 200 acres, which would be protected by a conservation easement. He said that when they die, one of their children would keep the land or sell it to a farmer.

If voters reject the bond, Clark said, he may have to sell the property.

"It's hard to ask people to spend money, with the economy the way it is," Clark said. "I'd really like to see this pass, but I need to look out for my family, too, and do what is financially right for them and for us."

By MELANIE CREAMER, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, October 23, 2009



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