In the Owner's Words: (Detailed property information from the seller.)
General Information:
From Borealis Road at Zion Back Road, it's a bit under a half mile to the Walker Township parks with soccer and baseball fields. Walker township is very good about providing parks space (they charge $2,500 per lot created in the township to support the park system). They also recently purchased or had donated in lieu of those fees the +-30 acres directly across Zion Back Road from the farm that is below lot 5, so there is lots of township land in walking distance.
There are many hiking trails onto the mountain from all the lots which cross into water company and state forest property rapidly, so if you like hikes they are just out the back door. The view from the top of the mountain is spectacular.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I searched long and hard looking for a building lot for myself. I did not find any that offered the privacy, views, trail access, convenient drive to town, etc that these sites offer. I'm not really a land developer, I'm in this because this property had the potential I wanted for where I intend to live for a long time and I'm looking forward to the lot I'm keeping becoming my home. In my opinion the three lots are better than anything I saw in the couple years I was looking at land.
Lot Descriptions:
Lot 4 is gently sloping, currently planted in orchard grass by the farmer whom lived down slope of lot 5, so it's staying well maintained and pretty. It would be a great lot for horses. Some of the people on the street (Workman Lane) adjacent to lot 4 have horses. The mountain trails are used for riding, so there is lots of opportunity for that type of activity from this lot.
Lot 5 is almost completely wooded and has two or three good general building areas. Two on the lower side of the lot and one (which I like best) on the top edge where the views would be as good as the number of trees you clear to make the view. There is a decent logging road leading to the upper possible home site which could easily become a driveway. The trees are mature, but not huge, it was logged recently, but it was done gently and it's not clear cut, there are many real trees there. There is quite a bit of timbering debris on the lot, tree tops, smaller limbs, etc, but it's good firewood and easy to clear. There is at least one good sized walnut tree on the rear property line, so if you are into gathering your own walnuts, I suspect that tree will satisfy. The survey map shows an easement cutting through the lot to the property uphill of it. That easement has been moved to the north side of the property line between lot 5 and lot 3 so it's less intrusive. Lot 5 does have one spring/seep area that could be turned into a small pond, probably not a swimming pond, but a nice frog pond/wildlife watering hole.
Lot 6 is about half wooded and half field. The lot is directly adjacent to the golf course. Has very nice views and is very private, I really like the driveway through the woods to get to the home site. In the wooded area there are a few old, neglected apple trees. With a bit of clearing to let sunlight into them and some pruning they should start producing again. Though it is worth noting that some apple trees were planted to make cider and may not be an eating variety, but cider is easy to make and incredible when fresh. The bottom of this lot also has potential for a small pond.
Hunting/Wildlife Viewing:
There is plenty of wildlife out there, several nice flocks of turkeys, many deer, foxes and most of the other fauna of PA. There is lots of wildlife viewing opportunities on all the lots, the interface between farmland and forest tends to be quite active. Lot six has a good deer trail across the top edge and I noticed a buck rub or two on saplings when I was mowing the field. I have not hunted the property, but the farmer, his son, farm hands and a few others did and the property as a whole produced a nice 8 point and at least another buck or two this year. PA's new buck harvest system (while a bit controversial) is going to produce some big bucks. There is good acorn mast on top of the hill, and better watering holes/farm fields at the bottom, so the deer have some predictable (as predictable as wildlife gets) fall movement patterns.
Timber:
The former owner did timber the property, but he left some good trees. I'm very pleased with what was left and the lack of rutting/logging disturbance. The field rows were not logged and quite a few nice hickories (not big timber $, but still nice) and some decent maples were left. The golf course lot (lot 6) has two oaks at the top of it that must have been too big for their lumber mill or logging gear to handle or they were concerned with the possibility of old embedded fence remains in the wood. The golf course lot also has a few old apple trees in the woods, which with a bit of clearing and pruning would probably flourish again. There is a lot of firewood in the woods on all lots except lot 4 (which is all field).
Limestone Rights:
From 100' down the limestone rights are not included. I met with the deep mine folks in Pleasant Gap and they are moving south for nearly the next 50 years (50 year mining permit area). If (and that's a big if) after that they turned north, it would be many, many, many decades before they got up to Mingoville. It would almost take the opening of a new surface operation closer to Mingoville to make it a possibility that there would be any mining under that land within my non-existent grand children's lives and the level of development around Mingoville/Zion makes that a snowballs chance in heck of happening.
The limestone rights were bought in 1954, I have a copy of the recorded legal info on it, and it appears that purchase may have happened at a time when more/expanded/another mining operation was being considered. The rights included rights to buy surface land for air shafts, but those purchase rights/options were only good for 20 years and expired 30+ years ago. So it looks like the purchase was part of a plan that never came together and is vastly unlikely to come together in the next 100 years. Even if it were deep mined, the impact would be minimal. My grandchildren (or whomever is living there) would need to bring public water up to the homes, but that would be about it.
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