NLC sells 31 acres to the Land Bank
Acquisition helps Land Council on Loring campaign
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
The Nantucket Islands Land Bank has purchased 31.7 acres on Quidnet Road from the Nantucket Land Council for $3 million.

The Land Council, however, got so much more.

This deal for a parcel of rolling grasslands dotted with scrub oak and a wetland, surrounded by residential property on three sides, allowed the Land Council to assuredly hedge its fundraising campaign for the $14 million it raised over the last two years to protect Linda Loring's 270 acres on Eel Point.

The Land Bank bought the property from Trotts Hills Realty Trust whose trustee is Peter R. Fenn, the Land Council's attorney. Prior to this sale, the Land Council had transferred the two lots over to Trotts Hills Realty Trust through Fenn.

"The Land Bank had an interest in purchasing this piece of property to help facilitate purchasing the Linda Loring property," confirmed Nantucket Land Council Executive Director Cormac Collier, who added that the Land Council had been working to clear title to the land since the 1980s.

It purchased the shares to the property for $50,000 in February 2005. Currently, the property is assessed at $7,987,900.

Collier said that in the fall of 2003 the Land Council also sold some of its land to help fund the $6-millionpurchase of the conservation restriction for the 104-acre parcel of agricultural land owned by Bartlett's Ocean View Farm.

Land Bank Executive Director Eric Savetsky said that this unusual sale of conservation land to purchase a larger, more significant parcel off Eel Point Road is a win-win situation for everyone.

"Just prior to the Loring deal, our purchase from the Land Council closed," he said. "It all came about because of the Nantucket Land Council's need to raise funds for the Loring deal. A condition of the purchase was that the $3 million purchase price be directly applied to the Loring purchase. We committed to that early on in the process.

"In return, we got good a deal on roughly 30 acres of land - certainly well below market rate."

In the Limited-Use-General- Three zone, three-acre zoning, at least 10 residential lots, would have been possible on this land. A total of 20 dwellings could have been built there if each had a secondary dwelling. The property, though surrounded on the west, north and east by private property, is bisected by Quidnet Road with the larger half on the south side of Quidnet Road forming a link running south across the road to land owned by the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, part of it's Windswept Cranberry Bog holdings.

"It's primarily rolling open land, some grassland with some scrub oak," said Savetsky. "Having it in conservation preserves the scenic nature of the road."

Savetsky said that the Land Bank plans to cut some walking

trails through this property. I