More than 30 years after the founding of a groundbreaking Greenspace program initiated by Anderson Township residents, the program is still growing.
A large parcel of Greenspace has been donated to Anderson Township’s portfolio of acquisitions, creating the biggest contiguous Greenspace property:170 acres on west side of Eight Mile Road between Hopper and Old Kellogg roads.
This is the 70th Greenspace parcel that was acquired by the township since program’s inception in 1990, with properties both purchased and donated now totaling 769 acres.
Anderson’s innovative program was the first publicly supported Greenspace program in the state. In the 1990s voters an initial short-term levy that was renewed once and eventually expired to provide funding to buy properties.
“The Anderson Township Greenspace program continues after three decades as a point of much community pride and serves as a model for other Ohio townships” said Suzanne Clingman, Anderson Township Greenspace inspector. “As Ohio’s first Greenspace community, Anderson has led the way in creating a sustainable program that will allow residents to enjoy these parcels that will be forever held in a natural state.”
“This recent donation just emphasizes once again the viability of our Greenspace program, which has been protecting beautiful corners of our community for more than 30 years,” said Ron Edgerton, longtime chair of the Greenspace Advisory Committee. “By all measures, our program has been a great success and has added to the quality of life in the township.”
The new 69.5 acre parcel was donated by Forestville Realty General Partnership.
Clingman said the recent donation has special importance, and not just because of its size.
“This donation is a signification addition to our portfolio of properties, as it is completely wooded with impressive older forests in some areas. Plus, it is originally part of the Charles F. Williams family property which at one time was 1,000 acres,” she said.
With this donation, a large parcel on the west side of Eight Mile Road, from Woodruff to just north of Kellogg (or over a mile of roadway frontage) will be forever Greenspace or parkland (Woodland Mound Park). Clingman noted that nearly a mile of frontage on the east side of this roadway is protected as part of Woodland Mound Park, a Great Parks of Hamilton County park.
“Adding this parcel as Greenspace allows the beautiful creek that separates the two properties to be protected,” Clingman added. “The forest on the hillsides along this creek is well over 100 years old and on some of these steep hillsides the forest has probably never been completely cut,” she said. The property holds a wide variety of tree species and an abundance of very impressive large trees, she added.
“It’s wonderful to be able to add a wooded parcel of this magnitude to the Greenspace program, continuing the efforts of those who worked so hard to implement this program over 30 years ago,” said Trustee Vice Chair Lexi Lausten. “Adding to its significance is that fact that the many acreages of land in our protected program ultimately have a direct impact in improving the quality of life for our township physically, socially and environmentally.”