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Forever Wild
Esopus Creek Conservancy to buy Keyser land
By Molly Eagan
Herons, kingfishers and eagles will continue to fly. Beavers will build, foxes
will play, turtles will lay their eggs on the sandy banks and people will continue
to walk, jog and bike through the some of the last wilderness in Saugerties,
just saved from the hands of a private developer by the Esopus Creek Conservancy.
The family of William Keyser was recently negotiating with a New York City/Kingston developer named Michael Citron to sell him 156 acres of untamed land bordering the Esopus Creek and Barclay Heights, which used to be known as Schroeder's Farm. The undeveloped land has long attracted investors looking to build subdivisions, but it is saturated with wetlands and topsy-turvy terrain and has changed ownership several times over the years.
In 1999, a group of Saugerties residents who live in near the property decided to try and buy it themselves in order to preserve it in its natural state. They approached the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, which offered its help, but they were outbid for the property by a couple from New York City. That deal fell through two years later and the land again came up for bid again in March 2002. This time the Saugertiesians organized themselves as the Esopus Creek Conservancy Project with the support of village mayor Bob Yerick and town supervisor Greg Helsmoortel. They offered the Keysers $130,000, but Citron offered almost double that amount. The conservancy's co-founder, Susan Bolitzer, thought the preservation effort was over, but she and other conservancy members kept going, calling the Keyser's and Citron to plead their case to preserve the land.
Then in August, the Citizens Action for Residential Environments in Saugerties (CARES) group held a bowling fundraiser, which turned into a cautious celebration when William Keyser's son-in-law, Otto Scheu arrived. He spent time talking to CARES members and residents who live along the creek.
When he left that night, he said, "I feel like Iıve made some friends,ı" Bolitzer said. Scheu said this week that the Keysers currently only have a verbal agreement with the conservancy to sell them the land. However, he said, "Our word is pretty strong. "What we were involved with was [Citron] made an offer and we advised him that we would not be looking at other offers while we were in negotiations with him. Once that fell through, and with all the publicity in the papers we knew the conservancy was interested, we immediately called Susan Bolitzer," Scheu said. "Essentially the deal with Citron was taking too long. We had requested a quick sale because my father-in-law was ill, so we reduced the price for quick sale and he was dragging it out."
The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, a nonprofit membership organization that serves the greater Catskill region, has committed $130,000 about half of the purchase price to the conservancy project, conservation director Chris Olney said.
"We got involved back in 1999 when Susan gave me a call and told me about the property going up for auction. We went out and looked at it and saw what great potential it had for public and open space and tried to find a way to protect the property. In a place like Saugerties, you have a high concentration of residential areas and people, yet in their backyards is this fabulous natural resource. This particular property is really important because it has so much river frontage. Itıs a nice, continuous block of open space that has the beginnings of what could be a great hiking or walking path network." Olney said that they would help host a future fundraiser in Saugerties to raise the rest of the money to buy the land.
Bolizer said that so far, Saugerties residents have pledged about $30,000 toward the purchase price. The costs for upkeep will be a future hurdle.
"I think at some point after we buy and secure it and work on developing the trails, down the road weıd love to have a nature and interpretive center for schoolchildren. Weıll be going for grants and the Greenway has offered to help us. We might have to look into loans," she said.
Dixon Onderdonk, president of the Lower Esopus River Watch, formed ten years ago by two creek residents to monitor water quality of the Esopus, has helped the conservancy financially, as has Scenic Hudson.
"The Lower Esopus River Watch has been working on the lower creek for 11 years with a focus of protecting and preserving the property. If it was developed improperly it would have negative impacts on the water quality in the creek, affecting the town beach and the ability to swim and boat there," Onderdonk said.
The river watch provided $1,800 to pay for property evaluation assessment. For Bolitzer, who lives on the banks of the creek, the most important thing is having the land back in conservancyıs hands. She said she will keep working to preserve its future. "Citron probably did us a big favor because the fact that somebody was about to develop the land made it easy to mobilize people," she said. "Nobody wanted to see houses built there, not the kayakers, the canoers, the fisherman or the people who lived on the east shore of the creek. People in Barclay Heights felt their neighborhood couldnıt support any more traffic."
Scheu said the family will be relieved to get rid of the property, which he described as a long-time financial burden, and is happy to have a chance to leave a legacy to the community. "The familyıs really happy that it looks like itıs going through because we think itıs going to be good for the community and the conservancy is the best buyer we could hope to find. We feel itıs going for under its market price, but it will serve the community and rid the family of the property."
Although ecstatic that the conservancy's hard work has paid off, Bolitzer says itıs not yet a done deal.
"It's not done until itıs done and we need the support of everyone in the community to help us to buy it, and of the town and village to help us maintain it. I'd like to see this property become public land for everyone to enjoy, for people to tie their kayaks at the docks and go for walks in the woods. And for the people in Barclay Heights, there are some who barely knew that a whole other world in their backyard exists. I met a woman down there once and asked her if she wanted to go for a walk with me and she walked into the woods and said, 'Oh my god, I feel like I'm not even in Saugerties.' Itıs really thanks to the Keyser family that they haven't developed it. I think that the community also gives thanks to them for preserving it. I think we all owe something to the Keyser family because they held on to this property and allowed it to remain wild."