MetroParks to purchase Sebring land

By Peter H. Milliken

Sebring Woods hiking trails should be established next year, a park official says.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Eastgate Regional Council of Governments and the state have approved funds to enable the Mill Creek Metropolitan Park District to buy 39 acres of park land in Sebring, and to pay for a conservation easement on 66 acres of Boardman wetlands.

The park district’s grant applications were endorsed by the Mahoning County commissioners in January, and the money will come from the Ohio Public Works Commission’s Clean Ohio Conservation program.

The approvals were announced by Annemarie DeAscentis, grants fiscal manager in the county commissioners’ office.

Approved was a $104,800 grant to enable the park district to buy Sebring Woods on the northeast corner of Johnson and Courtney roads from the village of Sebring and turn it into a park to be managed by the park district.

The park district plans to establish hiking trails through Sebring Woods, which consists of wetlands, woods and grassland along Fish Creek.

“The MetroParks strive to protect natural areas and natural resources, and this property acquisition allows us to fulfill those objectives,” Justin Rogers, a park district landscape architect, said Wednesday.

Rogers said he expects the closing on the Sebring Woods purchase to occur in midsummer, and he hopes to establish hiking trails there within a year after closing.

Also approved was a $99,000 grant to fund the park district’s purchase of a conservation easement on privately owned Boardman wetlands, known as the Preserve Easement, to keep that land forever in its natural state.

That land, located in the Mill Creek watershed and owned by Bud Williamson, is in a triangle bounded by Tippecanoe and Western Reserve roads and the Ohio Turnpike.

“The placement of the conservation easement on a high-quality [wildlife] habitat will ensure the protection of that land in its natural state,” Rogers said.

The conservation easement stays with the property deed even if the property is sold to a new owner, Rogers said.

Rogers said he expects final documents to be signed for the conservation easement within the next three months.