July 9, 2000, Sunday
Westchester Weekly Desk
PRESERVATION; Those Who Cherish Open Space
By MARILYN SHAPIRO
MUCH to her husband's chagrin, Ellin London loved land before it became fashionable.
''He thought when he married me he was getting off cheap,'' she said with her gray eyes twinkling. ''I didn't smoke. I didn't drink. I didn't get my hair done. Little did he realize that I liked land, and he didn't know he couldn't afford me.''
A granddaughter of Henry Morganthau, the former United States ambassador to Turkey, Mrs. London has spent almost half a century working to preserve open space.
At 77, she is now fighting to preserve the land around her as it starts to be nibbled away by development.
Land is always an emotional issue, and residents of northern Westchester are reacting to development with a fervor not seen in a decade, proposing new initiatives to preserve open space.
Phrases like land use surveys, master plans and conservation easements are the talk of everyday conversations. As traffic increases on once deserted roads and large houses start popping up in once sylvan settings, the changes are greeted with as much enthusiasm as thickets of poison ivy.
Mrs. London has experienced what uncontrolled development can do to the character of a town. She and her late husband, Robert, a pediatrician, lived in Scarsdale for 21 years before moving to Pound Ridge in 1972. While in Scarsdale, she helped found the Federation of Conservationists 35 years ago and helped lead the fight against rerouting the Bronx River Parkway through the Butler Woods. ''I battled down there and look what happened?'' she said, referring to development there.
She remembers how she would spend every summer and fall looking for land. Now that she has the Pound Ridge land she inherited from her mother, Ruth Morganthau Knight, she is making sure it can never be built on.
In the early 1970's, Mrs. London and her mother created the 31-acre Henry Morganthau Sr. Preserve with the Nature Conservancy. The wooded property is laced with hiking trails overlooking Blue Heron Lake. Over the years Mrs. London has added to the preserve and lent money to the Nature Conservancy to buy property. Recently, she granted a conservation easement to the Westchester Land Trust on four acres next to the preserve. The easement will prevent anyone from ever building on the lot, which is on the shore of the lake.
Mrs. London is a proponent of conservation easements and encourages landowners to think about easements as a way to preserve the land and protect the environment.
''We cannot buy all the land that needs to be saved,'' she said. ''That's why we have to get conservation easements.''
The easements are among the tools that conservationists have developed to preserve the fragile and scenic ecosystem of the area. Guided by organizations like the Westchester Land Trust and the Trust for Public Land, land coalitions are striving to control development.
With nine preservation coalitions as members, the Westchester Land Trust has formed the Westchester Open Space Alliance. These coalitions, by working with local governments and developers, hope to promote ''smart growth,'' a planned way of creating development that serves their communities while preserving the character of the area, said Paul Gallay, executive director of the Westchester Land Trust.
''Diversity and growth are important to any town,'' he said, ''but you've got to manage growth rather than letting it manage you. Investing in open space is one component of that.''
Mr. Gallay said a number of recent studies show the cost of uncontrolled development can be much higher than the cost of preserving land. For example, school budgets can be adversely affected by the influx of students from a new subdivision.
The towns of Bedford and Pound Ridge recently placed on the November ballot open space referendums that would increase property taxes to create a fund to acquire land. And the Town Council of Lewisboro is expected to consider a resolution on July 18 authorizing bond issues to acquire land.
Bonding and property tax increases are the only ways towns can raise the money to bid competitively against developers for land, said Chris Wells, public finance manager with the Trust for Public Land's Mid-Atlantic Region.
Creating designated land funds, through small property tax increases, gives towns the option of using funds to buy parcels of land or
float bonds against a steady stream of money. Bond issues, on the other hand, give towns the authority to sell bonds to buy land that is considered endangered.
North Salem, Cortlandt and Yorktown are also actively considering land use surveys with an eye toward putting acquisition initiatives on their ballots.
''It seems to be catching fire up in north Westchester,'' said Mr. Wells, whose organization works to create new financing sources for land conservation. ''There's a sense that land is a finite resource, and there is a public perception that these towns will be built out and the woods will have houses on them in the near future.''
Across the United States, open space initiatives met with wide success last year. Of 102 open space acquisition initiatives on the ballots in 22 states, 92 passed, raising total funds of $1.83 billion for open space acquisition.
The recent success of such initiatives on Long Island and in New Jersey has helped spur Westchester residents into action.
''It's a good economic time; there is a lot of development pressure,'' said Cynthia Curtis, a councilwoman on the North Salem Town Board. ''Why don't we just take a giant step back and tackle these issues?''
In Bedford, a recent master plan survey showed that 75 percent of respondents were willing to see their taxes increased by $100 a year to ''preserve rural character.''
John Dinen, Bedford's town supervisor, said the survey scientifically confirmed the residents' desire for land preservation.
As a result of the survey, the town has drafted a proposed resolution for a designated property tax increase to be placed on the November ballot. The Town Board will put the initiative on the ballot this fall.
''In the board's initial discussions it was felt that this was the most equitable and easiest plan to administer,'' Mr. Dinen said.
A land use survey by the Pound Ridge Coalition, showed more than 65 percent of the respondents favored a referendum this fall on the open space issue, said Ray Smith, president of the group.
''This is a community that dumps its waste and gets its water from the same place,'' Mr. Smith said. ''There is a very fragile ecosystem here.''
A Pound Ridge resident for 33 years, Mr. Smith is sanguine about competing with developers in an area where the average lot can cost $250,000 to $350,000.
The fund, he said, should be used only to acquire key pieces of property that are in danger of development. He would rather
encourage land owners to donate land to conservation organizations through trusts or easements.
''This is being promoted as a last resort,'' he said. ''The only way some pieces of land can be saved is by paying the market price. Obviously, we'd rather not pay it.''
Although Pound Ridge officials have agreed to put the question on the ballot, there is little enthusiasm for raising taxes. Joy Simpkins, the Pound Ridge town supervisor, is worried that an additional tax will drive out poorer residents.
At present, she said, a third of the land in Pound Ridge is in preservation trusts, but most of it is concentrated in the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation at the northern end of town. Mrs. Simpkins said she is waiting to see how this sudden urgency to preserve plays out.
''There is already a limited amount of land available for development,'' she said. And while she appreciates the public's concern for open space, she is worried about the potential loss of tax revenue.
''Open space is not free,'' Mrs. Simpkins said. ''Pound Ridge really does have a diversity that really is wonderful, but we're not going to have it long if we don't provide a way for our valuable town workers to live here.''
Mrs. London favors the tax increase but said the town has already let many opportunities for preservation slip away.
Several years ago, she recalled, there was enough open space in Pound Ridge for a greenbelt that would have connected all the preserves, parks and open spaces. Now, she said: ''It has been lost. It's gone.''