Warren Woods. Courtesy of the Scarborough Land Trust

The Scarborough Town Council recently approved a first reading to authorize the town manager to transfer four town-owned properties to the Scarborough Land Trust for permanent conservation at their June 21 meeting. A public hearing and second reading was scheduled to take place at the next meeting.

The four contiguous properties are located on Payne Road and Mussey Road: 00 US Route One – Map U050 Lot 001A; 35 Payne Road – Map R038 Lot 0002; 19 Mussey Road – Map R038 Lot 002B;  and 21 Mussey Road – Map R038 Lot 002A.

The four properties border the Nonesuch River. They are mostly covered by the river’s floodplain and related wetlands. According to the Scarborough Land Trust, the properties are not suitable for future development and instead should be conserved as “forever wild,” which will help protect the Nonesuch River.

The Scarborough Land Trust originally put the request in for these properties in writing about a year ago.

“We recognized that these four properties that the town owned all have rated high conservation value by the land trust,” Andrew Mackie, executive director of the Scarborough Land Trust, told the Leader. “And they are properties that border existing land trust properties. So the idea was to have the town transfer them to us.”

The action would put the properties into permanent conservation status. The land would join existing land trust properties, making them easier for the trust to manage and protect, and remove invasive species. Three of the properties off of Mussey Road would join the Warren Woods Preserve and the one along the Nonesuch River on Route One would join the Blue Heron Preserve.

“All four of the properties were not really suitable for anything else (besides conservation),” Mackie said. “They all had a very high proportion of wetlands and floodplain of the Nonesuch River.”

The Scarborough Land Trust would be responsible for the management and related costs of the properties’ stewardship. Protecting these lands help protect the Nonesuch River, he said, which in turn also protects the Scarborough Marsh.

“Protecting these parcels for conservation values is vital to protecting the long-term health of the Nonesuch River, its watershed, and consequently the Scarborough Marsh,” reads the letter the land trust sent the town council.

During the meeting, Town Manager Tom Hall explained that the properties came as a “package deal” from previous owners when the town was interested in acquiring land for the Higgins Beach Parking Lot. The town “had no clear public purpose or reason” to own these properties otherwise, Hall explained.

By transferring the properties to the land trust, the town would make another step to the 30×30 conservation goal pledged earlier this year. The 30×30 resolution sets a goal to conserve and protect at least 30 percent of the town’s land and water by 2030. Currently, Scarborough has about 17 percent of its land conserved. These four properties would add to the 29 conserved properties of the Scarborough Land Trust, totaling over 1,600 acres.

The Scarborough Parks and Conservation Land Board fully recommended the town transfer these properties to the land trust.

The council unanimously approved the action, which requires a second vote.

The trailhead to Warren Woods in Scarborough. This area is a conserved land protected by the Scarborough Land Trust. Maxen Ryder