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York County to buy easement on 139-acre Hopewell Township farm for $486,360
Summary
The board adopted a consent agenda that included the Ag Preserve Board's request to purchase an easement on Flint's Ball Farms LP, totaling 138.96 acres in Hopewell Township for $486,360 from the county easement purchase fund; incidental costs of $6,960.92 are to be reimbursed by the state.
The York County Board of Commissioners adopted a consent agenda July 2 that included a county-only purchase of an agricultural easement on a 138.96-acre farm owned by Flint's Ball Farms LP in Hopewell Township.
Eric Naylor, representing York County’s Ag Preserve Board, presented the easement request and asked the board to approve the purchase. “On behalf of York County's Ag Preserve Board, we have item number 12 on the agenda today, and we are gonna request your consideration of the following easement purchase by the county,” Naylor said.
Naylor said the parcel lies about a mile north of Stewartstown on Route 24. He reported the easement application met minimum criteria, that 100% of soils on the farm are in land capability classes 1 through 4, and that about 78% of the easement area is available for commercial agricultural production. He also said the owners excluded a three-acre tract of woods for a future building lot and that the farm has a current agricultural erosion-and-sediment-control plan dated 2023.
Naylor said the farm ranked ninth of 50 applications in the 2024 ranking cycle and that the owners accepted 92% of the easement value. He said preserving this farm would push Hopewell Township over 4,800 acres of preserved land, would touch three previously preserved farms and would build onto a roughly 1,300-acre block of contiguous farmland in the area.
Naylor requested $486,360 from the county easement purchase fund for the easement purchase and said incidental costs estimated at $6,960.92 would be reimbursed by the state. “On behalf of your counties [sic] Ag Preserve Board we respectfully request your approval for purchase,” Naylor said.
The commission approved the agenda items, including the easement request, as part of a single consent motion adopting items 1–47 by voice vote. The transcript does not record a separate roll-call vote on item 12 or conditions attached to the purchase beyond the funding sources Naylor described.
The board did not receive public comment on the easement during this meeting.
