At last night’s Hanover Town Meeting, residents voted to approve a $500,000 contribution towards the purchase of the Mink Brook Community Forest from reserve and conservation funds held by the Town. From the Valley News, “Plans to turn 260 acres of woods and old farmland along both sides of Greensboro Road into a town forest also were OK’d on Tuesday. Residents voted by a show of hands to spend $500,000 to help purchase land which crosses Mink Brook and includes a brick farmhouse from 1850. The Trust for Public Land, assisted by the Hanover Conservancy, hopes to spend $2.5 million acquiring the property from the Leavitt family. So far, an anonymous donor has footed $500,000 to help the project, which also received a $600,000 community forest program grant from the U.S. Forest Service. None of the town’s share will come from new taxes, and will instead be taken from existing reserve and conservation funds. Officials also hope to sell the property’s farmhouse to help finance the overall project, and a separate four acres could be used by Twin Pines Housing Trust to build “a small cluster of affordable cottage-style homes targeted to new homeowners,” according to an April news release.”
