182 acres of farms and woods preserved off Chester County creek

About 182 acres of rolling farmland and sloping woods in Charlestown Township, Chester County — all valuable, buildable land within the Pickering Creek watershed — have been preserved from most development under two recent agreements.

The conservation easements designed to protect both land and tributaries to the watershed were paid for with $4.1 million from the township’s taxpayer-funded Open Space Initiative.

More than 40% of the 12.5-square-mile township, which is 25 miles west of Philadelphia, is preserved, according to a township newsletter.

Though none of the deals allow public access, officials heralded them as key in keeping prized land from development.

In the most recent deal announced this week, the French & Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust and the township agreed to a conservation easement that would preserve 71.6 acres of property owned by Robert Berry off Merlin, Pikeland, and Church Roads.

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Current zoning would allow up to 23 homes to be built on the land. That’s reduced to four homes in the easement, and any of those would be spread out across large parcels — saving 19 homes from being built.

Berry, in return, gets $1.33 million under an agreed-upon appraisal, or about $18,575 an acre. He currently leases the land for farming, a use that can continue.

“The property is special,” said Pamela Brown, French & Pickering’s conservation director. “It is visually beautiful. It has great scenic views from two major roads in the township. It has a tributary to the Pickering Creek. It has forest; it has wildlife habitat; it has agricultural land.”

More specifically, the Berry property includes 12.6 acres of woods, 50.7 acres of prime agricultural land, and a half-mile of the unnamed tributary, designated as having high-quality water by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

The nonprofit French & Pickering trust and township co-hold the conservation easement on the land.

The trust works with landowners, townships, foundations, and the state and county to purchase and monitor conservation easements as a way to preserve environmentally sensitive land. The easements mean preserved land can never be developed and lock in how it can be used by current and subsequent owners.

Earlier this month, the trust announced another conservation easement, also in Charlestown, of 111 acres covering two parcels off Charlestown Road owned by brothers Christopher, Nicholas, and Geoffrey Crowell. The easement eliminates high-density development rights on the scenic land. Part of the deal was completed in 2021 and part in March.

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The Crowells’ two properties, which include wooded areas, contain a tributary to the Pickering Creek and 71 acres of prime agricultural soil. The easement includes 31 acres of mixed-age woodlands and “a vegetated stream corridor that provides habitat to numerous plant and animal species,” according to the trust.

The Crowells received nearly $2.8 million in return for the preservation and have already sold a chunk of the land that will remain protected.

“The Crowell property is wooded on land that was agricultural fields in the past,” Brown said. “It is at the top of the hill, all wooded, and it’s adjacent to other eased properties that French & Pickering holds.”

She described the view from the top of one hill as almost unbroken, “except for one house.”

Though the two recent easements are not contiguous, both are near, or touch, other similar conserved land. Brown said she is working on multiple additional agreements to preserve more land in that community and northern Chester County, where home prices have been escalating and pressure to build increasing.

French & Pickering has helped protect about 13,000 acres in northern Chester County through purchases, easements, and partnerships. It has two main preserves open to the public: the 550-acre Great Marsh Preserve in East Nantmeal Township and the 108-acre Thomas P. Bentley Nature Preserve in East Nantmeal and Warwick Townships.