Montgomery County Lands Trust caught between wealthy feuding neighbors

The split-rail fence about a quarter-mile west of Harts Lane may look simply like a rustic barrier snaking its way through Whitemarsh's Miquon Forest.

But those who live in the neighborhood know better.

For them, it separates two millionaire couples at war in one of the most vicious development disputes the township has ever seen.

For six years, Gary and Nancy Veloric have fought with neighbors Brad and Andrea Heffler over a horse corral and trails the Hefflers built on their property in 2005.

Fingers have been pointed, threats made, and five lawsuits filed. The Velorics have even hired a Boston public-relations firm to represent their case in the media.

But what may look to some like a picayune tempest in the timberlands could have significant ramifications for the way open space is protected across the state.

"It's like the Hatfields and the McCoys, but with money," said Marc Jonas, solicitor for the Montgomery County Lands Trust, a nonprofit conservancy group caught up in the legal fight. "Who has the means to launch a campaign like this just to get their way?"

At issue is an agreement both couples, formerly friends, signed when they bought their 10-acre plots a stone's throw from the Schuylkill.

Because the land - rich with towering maples, hickories, and American beeches - fell within a conservation easement, the Velorics and the Hefflers signed contracts at the time of sale restricting all future development on a portion of their lands.

Such easements, an increasingly popular form of open-space protection, are established through deed amendments in which developers or landowners restrict certain types of use for them and subsequent owners.

The original developer of the Veloric and Heffler properties created the easement in 2000 and donated it to the Montgomery County Lands Trust, which took responsibility for protecting its restrictions.

So when the Hefflers began moving dirt and clearing trees for their corral and trails five years later, Nancy Veloric became incensed.

She and her husband, founder of the financial-services firm J.G. Wentworth, had sought out their plot in south Whitemarsh precisely because its forest landscape was under protection.

"I thought we were so lucky to get this place," she said, escorting guests around the property, valued at more than $1.2 million. "It was my way of getting back to the community that's been so developed over the past 40 years."

Across the fence, Brad Heffler said he had not realized the corral would cause such a fuss. President of a claims-compensation company and investor in a North Philadelphia movie soundstage, he began building the riding ring and trails on his $1.5 million plot to support his wife's passion for horses.

But soon after construction commenced, the anonymous complaints started coming. Township zoning officials dropped by unannounced, and sternly worded letters from the Montgomery County Lands Trust began landing in the Heffler mailbox.

By clearing trees, building on slopes, and constructing without approval of the trust, they said, Heffler had violated the easement.

He conceded that he had not initially obtained the proper permits from the township or sought approval of the land trust before clearing the 9,000 square feet in question. But he maintained that, once aware of each violation, he had made amends.

"We got a permit. We replaced more trees than we took down," Heffler said. "We did everything everyone asked us to do."

It wasn't enough for the Velorics. In 2009, they sued the Hefflers, several contractors, and Whitemarsh, saying the township had failed to enforce its ordinances governing zoning and tree replacement. The Hefflers and their contractors had also damaged a portion of their land, they said.

But it was the suit the Velorics filed last year that set land preservationists atwitter.

Their latest lawsuit is against the Montgomery County Lands Trust, saying the nonprofit failed to uphold its end of their contractual bargain - protecting the Miquon Preserve easement.

The nonprofit should have required the Hefflers to tear down their corral and replant the removed trees, the Velorics maintain.

"It's outrageous," Nancy Veloric said. "They give good lip service, but then nothing got done."

Land trusts across the country have become frequent targets of those questioning their right to restrict future development on the plots they protect. But the Velorics' case is unusual, said their attorney Neil Stein, in its contention that the Montgomery County trust wasn't aggressive enough.

"If any land trust is going to be pitching people to donate their land and put it into conservancy, they should follow through," he said. "If they don't have the resources to do so, they shouldn't take the donation."

Jonas, the trust's solicitor, disagreed that the group had failed. From the start, it cited the Hefflers for violating the easement, even threatening to take them to court if they did not comply with a remediation plan. Since then, the organization has monitored the family's efforts to replace 34 trees. (The Velorics say the Hefflers took down far more.)

While the land will never be exactly as it was, the trust did what it could, given its resources, to bring the land back into compliance, Jonas said.

Nancy Assaf McLaughlin, a legal scholar at the University of Utah specializing in land conservation, said that standard should be enough to convince a court.

"Land trusts are required to enforce easements because they hold them on behalf of the public," she said. "But they also have discretion in carrying out their enforcement obligations. Courts are very unlikely to second-guess that discretion unless there has been clear abuse."

But for Heffler, who now rarely talks to his neighbors across the split-rail fence, the lawsuits aren't about the conservancy issues. They are about the Velorics' not getting their way.

"The land trust did its job," he said. "They enforced the easement properly. We complied. Now they're just caught in the middle."