Granville Township protects New Burg Street properties from future development
As Licking County keeps developing, Granville Township has ensured farmland on one of Granville's busiest roads will forever remain part of the rural landscape.
Granville Township Trustees recently added 534 New Burg St. and 659 New Burg St., which total 17 acres, into the township's Open Space Program. The adjacent properties are owned by sisters, Amy Welsh and Annie Quintrell and her husband Michael.
Welsh's 10-acre property at 534 New Burg St. is also adjacent to the 31 acres that will be used by Denison University for its 70-unit housing development for faculty and staff members.
When Denison shared its plans last spring to annex the 31-acre property into the village, Granville Township Trustee Rob Schaadt pulled up a county map to look at the property. His eyes immediately went to the properties owned by Welsh and the Quintrells. Schaadt reached out to the sisters about adding their properties to the Open Space Program over the summer, he said.
With the Denison property annexing, it was a priority to protect the Welsh and Quintrell properties. It would be easy for a developer to purchase their properties and annex them as well, which would allow for higher residential density, Schaadt said. That could lead to even more traffic on New Burg Street, which is already busy because of cars and buses traveling to and from Granville Middle and High Schools, both on New Burg Street, and Granville Intermediate School on Burg Street.
"It doesn't seem like that much now. But with the growth that is coming, that's all going to change," Schaadt said. "We're only talking about 17 acres, but you still are going to continue to see agriculture on New Berg rather than multifamily housing or single family housing."
Welsh and Quintrell are the third generation of their family to live on the New Burg Street properties, and they wanted to guarantee the possibility the land would be there for their family's future generations versus a larger housing development if they sold it.
"We have the third, fourth and fifth generations living here right now," Quintrell, 49, said, adding that her daughter and her family also live with them.
The land was purchased by their grandparents, Carl and Martha Welsh, in the 1950s. Then it passed to their parents, James and Jennifer (Philipps) Welsh.
Over the last 70 years, the 17-acres have grown corn, soy beans, alfalfa and more.
They also knew preserving the land was important to their neighbors, especially in light of Denison's plans. Prior to their mother passing in March 2023, a group of neighbors approached her saying they were willing to buy the properties to protect them, Welsh, 51, said.
"Once other people heard what Denison was doing, they were worried that it was going to be more in their backyard and that it would spread," Quintrell said
These are the latest properties to enter the program, which was established in 1998 with the goal of preserving Granville's rural landscape.
As part of both properties being in the program, conservation easements have been placed on them. This means the properties can never be turned into commercial or housing developments. The easements stay with the properties even if they are sold in the future.
Easements are one of the main ways the Open Space Program has preserved nearly 2,000 acres in the village and township, including the Granville Golf Course, the front lawn of Bryn Du Mansion, Spring Valley Park, Raccoon Valley Park and hundreds of acres of farmland.
The easements limit what can happen with the properties in the future. Neither property can be split and only one dwelling is allowed on each of them, though they are allowed to build additions. They can build agriculture buildings as well to help maintain the farmland, Schaadt said.
"The hope is they continue to farm it. It's not a big farm but it's a very visible farm right across the street from the high school," Schaadt said.
The easements cost $140,000 for the Welsh property and $98,000 for the Quintrell property, Schaadt said.
The Open Space Program is funded by Granville residents, who first passed a 1.0-mill property tax levy in 1998. Voters have renewed the levy every five years since then, with the last renewal happening in 2021. It generates about $343,000 annually for a five-year period and costs property owners about $23.50 per $100,000 of valuation.
Quintrell said she had thought about placing the properties in the Open Space Program before but didn't think they would qualify because of their size.
Schaadt said these properties are a little smaller than others typically in the program, but the properties now being adjacent to the village made them a priority.
Welsh and Quintrell also donated 10-foot easements across the front of the their properties for a potential multiuse trail.
With the traffic on New Burg, Schaadt said a trail is needed to protect the bikers, walkers and joggers that use the roadway. It would also been nice, Schaadt said, to have a path that connects the middle and high schools with the intermediate building.
And with the Denison faculty housing coming, the need for such a path is only increasing.
Part of why it hasn't been done already, Schaadt said, is the township doesn't have the right-of-way easements along New Burg Street.
"We still need to connect a bunch more properties, but it's a good start," he said.
Quintrell said it was an easy decision to donate the easement for a future path. When the sisters were growing up on New Burg Street in the 1980s, they walked and biked on the road with no concern. But Quintrell didn't let her daughter walk the half mile to Granville High School because of the increased traffic.
Schaadt said the lack of path is not just an issue for the township, but for the village, Denison and Granville schools.
"There's not a place in the township or village that is more in need of a pathway than through there," he said.
mdevito@gannett.com
740-607-2175
Twitter: @MariaDeVito13
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Granville protects New Burg Street properties from future growth
