New Parkland Proposed

By John Davis, Borough Manager

At their June meeting, Doylestown Borough Council initiated the acquisition, by eminent domain, of a 1.899 acre parcel located at the rear of 318 North Main Street (the Dairy Queen Property) for new parkland. This unimproved, entirely wooded parcel will be subdivided from the existing Dairy Queen property. The appraised value of the parcel is $245,000. A $200,000 Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) Grant will fund a portion of the acquisition.The parcel was first identified for possible acquisition in the Borough's 1997 Comp rehensive Plan and later identified as a high acquisition priority in the 1999 Open Space Plan.

The parcel is contiguous to the Varcoe Tract, a similarly wooded parcel acquired by the Borough in 1999 through the County Open Space Program, and would be combined with that parcel to create an approximately 3.4 acre public park.

The proposed park would compliment the adjacent Belvedere Land Development, which was designed to connect with the proposed park. It is also anticipated that the park would eventually be combined with parkland created on the PennDot Property upon its acquisition by the Heritage Conservancy. This would ultimately result in the creation of a contiguous belt of 7 - 10 acres of parkland and walking trails connecting Borough neighborhoods West of Broad Street with the Doylestown Shopping Center and Post Office.

The Borough had been negotiating for its preferred method of direct purchase of this property since the Spring of 2000. Recently, however, the property had come under new ownership unwilling to continue these negotiations. This, combined with recent inquiries regarding the possible commercial or light industrial development of the parcel, had led to Council's decision to pursue the acquisition through eminent domain.