Mainstreet Daily News
Alachua County purchased an conservation easement on a 400-acre property along the Santa Fe River with property owner David T. Brown.
The $480,165 easement ensures the property “will be retained forever substantially unchanged from its present condition of a mosaic of working pine forests and the natural communities buffering the Santa Fe River.”
The deal also covers future property owners and allows the timber harvest to continue providing the work doesn’t impact wetlands or naturally-forested areas.
The Santa Fe River corridor has been a priority for Alachua County. Brown’s property fronts the river for just over a mile. The land adjoins the county’s Moccasin Creek Preserve that continues along the river for another mile.
The county’s Wild Spaces Public Places financed the purchase. Alachua County voters will decide whether or not to continue the program along with an additional half-cent tax in November.
Other recent purchases include the March acquisition of the 4,000-acre Fox Pen Connector in southeast Alachua County, a 3,936-acre acquisition in January south of Hawthorne, a 2,274-acre easement between Alachua County’s Mill Creek Preserve and the Suwannee River Management District also in January, and an 292.5-acre expansion at the Lake Alto Preserve northwest of Waldo in December.