LEBANON — The City Council will take public input on Wednesday about whether to accept ownership of a 23-acre property across the road from the Signal Hill Conservation area.
The property owners, Sally and Jerry Rutter of Lebanon, are looking to donate it to the Upper Valley Land Trust, which would then transfer the land to the city with a conservation easement retained by UVLT. The easement means UVLT is responsible for stewarding the land and ensuring any provisions of the agreement are enforced.
The Rutter’s bought the property in 1998, according to property records. The land that had been owned and used as a dairy farm by one family for generations, Sally Rutter told the Conservation Commission in May. When she saw that the property was up for sale she “panicked” because she knew an area developer had been looking to expand and build more condominiums in the area.
The Rutters bought the land to “keep it raw.” After the purchase, they found the foundations of an old barn on the property that were especially of interest to former archaeology professor Jerry Rutter.
“I’m delighted along with Sally to give this to the public because I think it belongs to the public to be able to investigate the city’s past,” Jerry Rutter told the Conservation Commission in May.
At the public hearing, which is also the first of two public input sessions for the city’s budget process, the council will take feedback on whether to accept the land. The meeting is set to start at 7 p.m. in the Lebanon High School gym.
Should the city accept the land, it would be “managed similarly” to the Signal Hill property across Stevens Road, Craig Privett, the project manager for the Upper Valley Land Trust, told the City Council at a Nov. 19 meeting.
Lebanon bought the 220-acre Signal Hill property in 2002 when it was also in danger of development. The property is part of a chain of hills used to signal danger during the Revolutionary War and includes a former mining site and farmland. It has multiple hiking trails and is open to recreation that does not involve motor vehicles. One main parking area and trailhead is just across Stevens Road from the Rutter property.
The parcel in question is bordered on three sides by Stevens Road, a class VI road called Alden Road and Blodgett Brook.
It is one piece of a 1,700-acre tract of “unfragmented” natural land, Privett said. It is mostly meadows, but also includes some forests and grassland.
The property is designated as a “significant ecological area” and includes habitat for deer and other wildlife, as well as other natural resources.
It borders a designated major wildlife crossing and a 2016 Lebanon wildlife corridor report identified it as one of a few properties for which a conservation easement should be sought. The report also identified two other neighboring properties that are also privately owned.
In the spring, the Lebanon Conservation Commission, which strongly supports accepting the property, voted to allocate $21,000 from the Lebanon Open Space Trust, or LOST, to assist with property transfer costs if the city approves the contract with the land trust. The money would be used for legal fees, contribution to the UVLT’s stewardship costs, project management and to conduct a baseline documentation of the property.
The Lebanon Conservation Commission also uses LOST funds to maintain conservation lands and pay for a park ranger position.
The LOST, which was created in 1988, is funded via a change tax levied on property owners who previously received a reduced tax burden for undeveloped land and are taking the land out of its current use through development.
As of the end of October there was $1.4 million in the fund, Finance Director Alesia Williams said.
If the City Council opts not to accept the property, the Upper Valley Land Trust would accept and maintain the property “for the foreseeable future,” Privett told the council.
But, given its proximity to city-owned Signal Hill, a conservation easement “seems to be the best fit,” for the land, he said.