Lock Haven Looks at Selling Peddie Park
LOCK HAVEN – Hey developers, looking for acres and acres of Susquehanna River frontage close to Lock Haven? Actually, the City of Lock Haven itself might have exactly what you’re looking for.
The agenda for the Monday, Feb. 18 city council meeting calls for consideration of a resolution “to initiate the process of filing with the Court and the State to gain permission to offer Peddie Park for sale.”
Long agenda item short, the city acquired the holding in Allison Township along the west side of the river better than half a century ago. The former farmland was converted by the city into two softball fields and a soccer field which were used extensively at one time, but not very much in recent years. So now the city is looking at a possible sale of the land several miles upriver from Hanna Park. Peddie Park is named for former Lock Haven Mayor Douglas H. Peddie who served in the early 1960s.
City manager Greg Wilson told therecord-online the site is costly to maintain, given that now it is only used part of each summer on only one day a week. He said it takes four employees two days every-other week to adequately mow the site, what he called “a lot of man-hours to spend tax dollars on, especially for a park that isn’t within the city limits.”
He said no one so far has approached the city about a purchase and Monday’s resolution is the first step to gain permission to consider a sale. Wilson said both court and state legislative permission would be needed before a sale could even be considered. The site had been acquired with state financial help during the Peddie era.
And there would be applicable regulations for any development. Wilson said the site is in the flowage easement area of the Lock Haven Area Flood Protection Authority so no permanent dwelling could be built there. He said any development would have to be approved by the US Army Corps of Engineers. He said the park could make for nice river lots for those that can see the potential for that type of development, what he termed “recreation potential…but not at the city’s expense.”
The Norfolk Southern rail line runs along the west side, elevated portion of the site, but Wilson indicated that should not be an impediment to any prospective developer: “The agreement permitting the railroad crossing does not expire and is transferable with the property, so if there were a sale they would be assured access over the tracks to the property.”
The city website says the park consists of 10 acres of ball fields and “60 acres of riverside woodland.”
