June 2016

“ESLC Wants to Think Big and Smart with Historic Chesterfield (Carter Farm) in Centreville”

(This is an article and video interview that was published in The Chestertown Spy on May 30, 2016.) If there was a plot of land that combines the importance of history, conservation, land use and the dreams of a new Centreville it undoubtedly would be the Carter Farm on Chesterfield Road. Owned for decades by the late Judge Clayton Carter, the 72-acre property is now actively being considered as a top priority project of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. It is not hard to understand why the ESLC is seriously considering the two sites for both open space and smart growth residential use. The farm and house are located only a few minutes walk from Centreville’s historic downtown but has been zoned to accommodate 132 new homes if entirely built out. As the ESLC’s Center for Towns director, Katie Parks, notes in her interview with the Spy, ESLC is eager to work with a multitude of different community stakeholders to look hard and long at how the site can best be developed over the next few years. If a consensus can be created, ESLC and the greater Centreville community might indeed have the beginnings of a transformational scheme for rural towns on the Mid-Shore. This video is approximately five minutes in length.

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