The Board of Public Works Wednesday gave final approval to the $57 million purchase of 4,473 acres of some of Maryland’s most historic open space, including 19 miles of Potomac River shoreline in St. Mary’s and Charles counties.
Along with 975 acres in Cecil County, the land has been owned for more than three centuries by the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, the Catholic religious order whose members accompanied the state’s first colonists.
The Jesuits are selling the land to help support the retirement and care of their aging members, Natural Resources Secretary John Griffith told the board, made up of the governor, comptroller and state treasurer. Griffith said some of the land potentially could have been sold for development.
The money for the deal comes from real estate transfer taxes paid into Program Open Space, a dedicated fund that Gov. Martin O’Malley has promised not to tap as his Republican predecessor did in order to balance the operating budget.
Griffith pointed out that the sales price was $2 million less than the internal appraisal by the Department of General Services and $5 million less than the highest commercial appraisal.
Comptroller Peter Franchot, who objected to the cost of the last large parcel of open space approved two weeks ago, this time questioned the $606,000 payment to the Conservation Fund, a private group that identified the seller and negotiated the transaction. The fund typically gets 3 percent of the sale price for any land conservation transaction it helps broker, but in this case, it voluntarily reduced its fee.
Griffith told the board that his department relies on a network of land trusts to identify and purchase parcels, since they often can get a better deal than the state could.
If sellers know it is the state trying to acquire the land, “they view the state as deep pockets,” Griffith said. Groups such as the Conservation Fund, which has been involved in the purchase of 150,000 acres for state preservation since 1985, can often get parcels below fair market value.
Bill Crouch, the Conservation Fund attorney who helped broker the deal, said, “This is once and forever opportunity to protect these lands.”
The land is currently leased for farming and foresting. Griffith said the purchase would protect environmental habitats and give public access to the Chesapeake Bay and help preserve it as well.
For more information about the Maryland Province properties, click here.
