Minnetonka land saved through coincidence

After a call from the city, a Minnetonka nature lover enters the first tract in the city's open-space conservation program.

By LAURIE BLAKE, Star Tribune

Last update: October 27, 2009 - 5:03 PM

Print this story

Follow local news on Twitter

At a time when Minnetonka is seeing a lot of large properties chopped up for development, 80-year-old Andrew Fuller has made sure his rolling wooded acreage off McGinty Road will stay in its natural state forever.

Fuller is the first Minnetonka resident to voluntarily place land into a city conservation easement program aimed at preserving trees and open space.

"All the time we lived here, we kept getting calls from developers,'' said Fuller, who moved to Minnetonka in 1966 with his wife, Pepper, and their five children.

Both nature lovers, they chose their wooded 7.5 acres over a location on Lake Minnetonka for the quiet and wildlife it offered. With deer, wild turkeys, birds and an occasional fox and opossum, "it's kind of like a little wildlife preserve,'' Fuller said.

After his wife died two years ago, Fuller started looking for a way to save the land. "One of the biggest properties in the neighborhood is now under development,'' Fuller said. In addition to the acre where his home stands, "I have 6.5 acres of land, and I didn't want to see that cut up.'' So he talked with nature groups but could not find a way to preserve his property.

He was unaware that his homestead was among the top five of 110 tracts of land identified by Minnetonka as valuable open space containing remnants of the city's original forest of maple, basswood and oak trees.

Then one day he got a call from Jo Colleran, the city's natural resources manager, who was phoning each of the five landowners to explain the conservation program. She said one woman hung up on her, and the others weren't interested. But when she reached Fuller, he said, "I've been wanting to do this for years. Where have you been?''

Under the program, Fuller's land remains in his possession. Ultimately, he plans to sell it along with his large family home. When he does, the conservation easement will go with it, to prevent future development on the protected part of the property.

Minnetonka is a fully developed community, but it's experiencing a lot of in-fill building with the subdivision of larger tracts of land, Colleran said.

Many of them are parcels that give the city the natural, woodsy feel that residents love. Their loss is what prompted the city to try to protect the open space and trees, she said.

Residents approved the purchase and protection of open space in 2001 with the passage of a $15 million referendum, half of which paid for park renewal and half for open-space preservation, Colleran said.

To identify land that might be valuable open space, the city looked at all parcels of more than two acres that contain remnants of the city's maple-basswood forest, Colleran said. The city will work slowly down the list, letting landowners know that if they want to save their land the city will pay the $10,000 to $15,000 in legal and appraisal fees associated with documenting and recording a permanent conservation easement, she said.

"The beauty of the program is they took care of all expenses, including my own attorney's fees,'' Fuller said.

A retired businessman, Fuller is curious to see whether the lock on the land will decrease or increase the value of the property. He said his children backed his decision and are willing to forego inherited earnings they might have had by selling the land for development.

"My father said to me when I was young, 'Now Andy, I don't know what I can leave with you, but one thing I am going to leave with you is a love of the outdoors,''' Fuller said.

By leaving the open space in the city, Fuller said he hopes to pass on that legacy.

Laurie Blake • 612-673-1711