...Estate Could Be Ann Arbor's Best Park

TF ANN ARBOR'S City Council . and Planning Department fail io find a way to buy all 114 acres of the Graves estate being offered as a city park, they will miss an opportunity extremely few cities have any hope of matching. They will also miss an opportunity Ann Arbor cannot expect to have very long. This wooded land lies along the Huron River at Ann Arbor's northern edge. It begins a short distance west of the point where Huron River Dr. winds away from the approach to the US-23 freeway bridge. It takes in the banks along the drive's first long curve beside Ihe river, and extends as far north as Bird Rd., as far west as Newport Rd. % # nnHE Graves estates is rapidly being surrounded by major residential developments. The Planning Department has just made a "conservative" prediction that Ann Arbor's population will reach 150,000 by 1980. It is probably inevitable that even the heavily-wooded slopes within the Graves estáte will be partially cleared and bulldozed for homes if the city does not take the opportunity being offered now. The 114 acres are offered in three sections. The largest, 88 acres, includes the curve of Huron River Dr. and borders on both Bird and Newport. However, it includes only a small I parking area, off Bird. Building a f larger lot would involve tearing il down part of a wooded hill. This section's woods i n c 1 u d e S Michigan's largest sugar maple J tree. City Council rightly considers it the most important of the three sections for preserving a relatively unspoiled stretch of the Huron valley. jg But a second section of 20 acres iii and a third of six acres should also i be purchased if the city is to plan the Graves property as a major I park genuinely useful to a large number of residents with a variety i of interests. These smaller parpels offer relatively flat but wooded. areas that would lend themsd&ves % to picniking, possibly to playflelds I -and to parking space off Newport. j TAOUGLAS J. Fulton, chairman of the city's committee on Natural Resources, who has been the j main mover of interest in the Graves estáte, points out that buying all 114 acres offered by the Graves estáte would give Ann Arbor a total of about 175 contiguous acres in the Huron Valley -all within about two miles of downtown. The 114 acres are offered at I $2,500 per acre, or a total of ' I 000. Present and future generations 1 of Ann Arbor residents will have 1 cause to regret any decisión to 1 settle for less than all that is beÜ ing offered.