Longmont City Council Tuesday night approved agreements that will create valuable open space in Longmont and will be a key fixture both locally and regionally.
The Council unanimously backed plans to buy the 130-acre Adam Farm property, along with six shares from the Oligarchy Ditch Company, to set aside as an open space buffer southeast of Union Reservoir. The property will also be contiguous with St. Vrain State Park.
“This has some great opportunities for our city,” David Bell, Longmont’s director of Parks and Open Space, told the Council.
“It is a beautiful piece of property,” added Mayor Joan Peck.
The acquisition gives the city an opportunity to develop a trail system between Union Reservoir, St. Vrain State Park and the St. Vrain Greenway, Bell said.
The trail will also be a “keystone piece” of a proposed Front Range Trail System, Bell said, The Front Range trail will stretch 876 miles from Wyoming to New Mexico, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
To date, over 270 miles of the trail have been finished, one-third of the corridor.
The Adam Farm open space will provide a buffer to future development in southeast Longmont, Bell said.
The city will buy the land from Adam family for $5 million. Boulder County will buy a conservation easement from the city for $2 million, reducing the full cost of the property to $3.5 million, a city staff report states.
Before the city began negotiations with the Adam family, the property was annexed into the town of Firestone. The family wants to go through Firestone’s land use process to create four residential lots. The city will retain a conservation easement to ensure the lots will not be developed commercially, Bell said.
He said the Adam family intends to live on the lots.
