Cuyahoga Valley Removes 33 Vacant Buildings and Returns the Land to Forest

In spring 2022 Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio finished a $2 million project to remove 33 vacant buildings and let the land return to forest. None of the buildings was historic; the park had bought the properties decades earlier, when it was being set up. The long-awaited work was paid for by the Great American Outdoors Act.

"CVNP was created to protect and restore the Cuyahoga River valley and provide recreational open space for people," said Superintendent Lisa Petit. The project, she said, would bring 12 acres of park land back to its natural state and make visits safer and more enjoyable.

Why the buildings went

• Removing them wiped more than $7 million off the park's maintenance backlog.
• Some had been vandalised and had become safety hazards.
• Replanting serves the park's Climate Action Plan and Strategic Action Plan.

The National Park Service bought these 11 properties between the late 1970s and the 1980s, by eminent domain or under a use-and-occupancy agreement, which let the seller go on living in the house for a set time or for life, depending on the terms. Some of the buildings were old, but none met the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places.

Two of the properties, each with several buildings, belong to larger restoration projects.

Blackacre Farm, beside the Wetmore Trailhead

The park bought this land next to the Wetmore Trailhead from the Pittenger family in 1984–85. Peggy and Tress Pittenger had built Blackacre Farm into a successful horse-breeding business specialising in Morgans and Thoroughbreds. The farm had a house (built around 1929), a barn (around 1884), a granary turned chicken house, and a horse arena, stable and shed from the 1970s. Tress Pittenger took an interest in conservation methods for managing the land, though his work also destroyed an important archaeological site.

When the national park was created, the Pittengers' horse trails became the Wetmore trail system. Volunteers and staff have since planted thousands of trees around Wetmore, and the park is adding green stormwater infrastructure there to protect Dickerson Run and Langes Run, streams that feed the Cuyahoga River.

A riverfront house on Akron Peninsula Road

The second site, 3132 Akron Peninsula Road, faces the Neitenbach Farm, part of the park's farming programme. The park's use-and-occupancy agreement with the Grether family ended in 2018. The property held a 1961 house, a modern outbuilding, and an elevated roadway and driveway. It matters because it lies on the Cuyahoga, so clearing it is part of the regional effort to restore the river.

The money behind it

The Great American Outdoors Act became law in 2020 and created the National Parks and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund, which provides up to $1.9 billion a year for five years for major improvements in national parks and on other public lands, paid for by revenue from energy development. Together with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 and other construction funding, it is part of a concerted push to tackle the parks' large maintenance backlog.

Sources

• National Park Service, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, "Restoring Open Space by Removing Vacant Structures." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/restoring-open-space.htm
• Related: the Pittengers' conservation legacy at Wetmore; Cuyahoga River restoration; Legacy Restoration Fund.
• Photos: NPS / Tim Fenner; Blackacre barn, NPS / Mallory Klein.
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.