Bean Farm Moves Rapidly Toward Conservation
by Edd Merritt,
October 21, 2010, page 1.....

The Bean Farm comprises 236 acres on both sides of the Charlotte/Hinesburg Road approximately one mile west of Baptist Corners. The Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) acted on September 30 to approve a proposal to conserve it, and now it awaits the approval of the Selectboard to become a significant finished product in the town’s conserved agricultural lands and natural resources. Owners Clark Hinsdale and his family generously offered the land at 24 percent of the value of its easement rights.

The farm contains large tracts of open land that will remain so, and natural resource areas around Bingham Brook and Mud Hollow. The state’s Natural Heritage Foundation recognizes the importance of these areas.
Two small parcels around the existing Bean house and across Hinesburg Road have been removed from the conserved property.

VHCB and the Charlotte Land Trust (CLT) have played major roles in the purchase. According to CLT board member Kate Lampton, VHCB was presented with many requests for agricultural projects throughout the state. She said, “we were pretty excited” that VHCB, faced with choices and operating under a tight budget, selected this project for approval. The local land trust pledged $20,000 and in early December will ask for an additional $120,000 to come from the town’s Conservation Fund, which contains monies set aside annually for use in appropriate land conservation.

Proponents of the project say that the conservation of these particular parcels is significant to the Town of Charlotte in several ways. They are located in what is generally considered East Charlotte, an area that is currently undergoing scrutiny by residents and the Planning Commission in regard to guiding its future development. Diversity of a landscape that maintains both agricultural and village components appears to be a desired aspect of any future change in the area. Conserved agricultural lands will contribute an important element to that diversity.

According to Lampton, it is also significant that VHCB recognizes the importance of these parcels for the variety of reasons that land is conserved in the first place – such things as retaining natural resources, preserving the clay plain soils, holding on to agricultural uses – all things, she says, that the Charlotte Land Trust argues for in its bid to maintain properties in Charlotte in their current state.

Between now and the meeting to request Conservation Funds from the Selectboard, Lampton says she and others involved in the project will meet to discuss it with the town’s Conservation and Trails’ Committees in order to gain their approval, which can then be shared with the Selectboard.