Along with the multiple holiday-themed advertisements and Christmas cards, residents of Freeport will be getting a vital piece of mail at their homes this week.

It is from the Freeport Conservation Trust, a volunteer organization dedicated to preserving the town’s open lands, and it is asking residents for their help with two projects that are key to preserving more open spaces for the town’s future.

The projects in question are Frost Gully Woods, a 13-acre parcel recently given to the Freeport Conservation Trust by the Maine Water Co., the public water utility; and the Winter Hill Farm, a 50-acre working dairy farm for which the conservation trust recently acquired an agricultural conservation easement to ensure the property will be preserved from future development.

The trust is seeking $25,000 from the public in this fundraising push – $10,000 for the Frost Gully Woods project and $15,000 for the Winter Hill Farm project.

“I think they’re very important (projects),” said Mason Morfit, Freeport Conservation Trust vice president. “In the first place, it gives us two more protected areas west of I-295. Most of our preserves to date have been east of 295, so this is giving more balance to our preservation portfolio. It’s getting more readily accessible preserves for people who live in that area of town.”

In the case of Frost Gully Woods, which is located behind the Burr Cemetery off Route 136, the conservation trust owns the land, but Katrina Van Dusen, the trust’s executive coordinator, said the parcel was landlocked and there was no legal way for the public to access it.

So, Van Dusen said, the trust negotiated with the owners of the privately owned cemetery for access to the property. For $25,000, half of which was contributed by the town through voter-approved land bond funds, the cemetery agreed to construct an access road and a parking area, which will be maintained and plowed by the cemetery.

“We made a deal with the cemetery for access and that’s what we’re fundraising for,” said Van Dusen.

She said the conservation trust paid for the access with money that it already had available and is looking to cover that cost through fundraising.

“The good thing is, which we never get with a project, is that we have a plowed access road and parking area. That’s the challenge for us. We often don’t have any kind of parking unless we put it in and we often have to decide if we’re going to plow it.”

“Providing access to that landlocked parcel has actually been a very high priority for the board since the land was donated to us,” said Mary Sauer, president of the Freeport Conservation Trust. “The purpose of having the land is not only to protect it in its wild state for future generations, but also, and just as importantly, to allow access from the public to allow people to get out there and walk on and enjoy it. So we’re really pleased the town of Freeport partnered with the trust to make it possible for us to acquire the access and parking easement from the cemetery.”

Now that the issue of access is settled, Van Dusen said, the conservation trust will be working to build trails through the property to allow the public to access what she calls “a hidden gem.”

Looking at the Winter Hill Farm project, the issue is not providing public access to what is still a working dairy farm, but to ensure that the farmland is permanently protected from future development.

Thanks to a grant from the Land for Maine’s Future Program, the Freeport Conservation Trust has already received $120,000 toward the purchase of a conservation easement for the land, leaving the trust responsible for $40,000. Some fundraising efforts have already proven fruitful, and according to the conservation trust, just $15,000 needs be raised from the public.

Once the trust gets the agricultural easement on the farm, it will still be business as usual. Sauer said the farm will continue as a working dairy farm. All the easement does is prevent the owners from selling parts of the land off for development.

“It protects the land from being used for (something like) a subdivision,” she said.

Because the farm will still be a working farm, there will not be public access to the property, but, Van Dusen said, having an easement ensures that the land will stay in its natural state for future generations of residents.

Sauer said the projects wouldn’t have been possible without the financial help from the town.

“That was really key,” she said. “The projects may not have happened without that.”

The Freeport Conservation Trust has acquired an access easement from Burr Cemetery for its Frost Gully Woods property, shown in the map above.   
Fresh footprints suggest Monday’s snow hasn’t stopped users from the Freeport Conservation Trust’s Frost Gully Woods property. The group has just acquired an easement that will give the public a road and a plowed parking lot, allowing far easier access to the property.