Albemarle County has agreed to accept a gift of 410 acres to create a nature preserve, Sean Tubbs reports for Charlottesville Tomorrow. Montgomery Bird Woods and Jose V. Lambert tried to donate the land earlier in the year but, surprisingly, the gift was turned down at the recommendation of Albemarle County staff. The rationale for the rejection was that the county isn’t prepared to do anything with it, and they’re not in a position to prevent people from trespassing on parcel. The land is located on Route 29, just south of town, near Arrowhead Valley Road. The couple was frustrated by the decision, and invited county officials to visit, which they did. The solution was to partner with the Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary and the Ivy Creek Foundation, who will act as caretakers, which will leave the county spending just $6,500/year on the land.
Confusingly—or perhaps fittingly—the park will be named “Woods Park,” in honor of Montgomery Bird Woods’s father, William Sharpless Derrick Woods, whose name you might know from “McGuire, Woods, & Battle.”
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