The city of Eugene has bought 100 acres of forestland near the Lane Community College campus for $850,000 in a deal city parks planning manager Neil Bjorklund calls a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
But it may be a lifetime before the public can easily access the property. The densely wooded, largely inaccessible site lies on the west side of Interstate 5 about a half-mile north of LCC.
Bjorklund said the land ultimately will become part of the city’s ridgeline trail system, a network of partially connected parklands along the city’s southern rim. The land is near, but does not include, a narrow gravel road underpass under I-5, potentially linking the ridgeline system to lands along the Coast Fork of the Willamette River, east of I-5.
The purchase of the three adjacent parcels near LCC closed at the end of 2015 . Two of the parcels were purchased from Gordon Templeman Jr. for $675,000. The city purchased the third parcel from the Happy Valley, Oregon-based Petitti Family Revocable Living Trust for $175,000. The city paid for the purchases with money from the parks bond measure voters approved in 2006.
Read more at The Register-Guard.com.