The BG News

Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Local

Media Credit: Brian Bornhoeft Working with the bugs: Natural Resources Specialist Cinda Stutzman tends to the hummingbird and butterfly habitat located in Wintergarden Park.

Carlene Creps, 70, remembers driving a tractor down the once dirt Wintergarden Road, tending to her sheep and galloping her horse through the seemingly endless wooded acres nearby. She has lived there for 67 years. She likes it the way it is.

In 2005, a real estate development company purchased the 19.6-acre parcel of land adjacent to Creps' 20-acre lot for building condomeniums. No longer would Creps' memories resemble the view beyond her backyard.

Thanks to the Save the Woods Campaign, one of Bowling Green's last undeveloped wooded area's will remain preserved, just as Creps remembers it.

By the end of 2005, Bowling Green Parks and Recreation negotiated with the development company and agreed to purchase the lot, said Mike Przysiecki, natural resource specialist. A low-interest loan was secured with a $105,000 down payment, he said.

Now the goal is to raise $480,000 plus interest to pay off the rest of the loan, said Michelle Grigore, director of Park and Recreation. She said $141,500 has allready been collected and that she hopes the rest will be collected within three years.

A large chunk of the down payment was funded by the city's Greenspace Acquisition Fund and a partnership between private and public donors, Grigore said.

She said the Save the Woods Foundation has largely been a group effort between public and private partys. Bowling Green Parks and Recreation didn't want their parks backing up to a condo complex, and the Wintergarden Road residents didn't want to see the woods disappear, she said.

When the property first went up for sale, Creps said she did not dream developers would pick it up.

"I thought, oh my heavens, we can't let this happen," Creps said, "We were determined that they were not going to develop [the parcel of land]."

Creps and a team of neighbors started getting orginized. They hired an attorney, raised some funds and held monthly meetings, she said. They started soliciting and more people started getting involved. Finally, Parks and Recreation got involved and the attorney negotiated with the developers, she said.

The foundation is campaigning by passing out brochures in the park and community, Grigore said. There was also a kick-off campaign on March 29 and a fundraising dinner set for May, she said. For people who wish to contribute, but can't make monetary donations, Grigore said they may volunteer their time to clean up of the newly acquired property.

But until the loan is paid off in full, Parks and Recreation will not be able to build hiking trails or develop the park at all, Grigore said.

"It's kind of like having a mortgage on your house," she said. "So we have to pay it off untill it is actually ours."

The new 19.6-acre parcel will increase the Wintergarden Nature Preserve to over 100 acres and includes a pond and a log home which will serve as a community retreat center, Przysiecki said.

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