Park History
If you haven’t had a chance to visit the area’s new Roeliff Jansen Park, please plan to go over and explore the land. It’s located on Route 22 one half-mile south of the Hillsdale light on the east side of the road. The park includes four beautiful trails, an area where families with small children can enjoy the Roeliff Jansen Kill and several picnic areas.
Just a couple of years ago, this park was a parcel of land leased out to farmers but owned by a developer waiting for the opportunity to start building houses. Today it is a parcel of land still largely leased out to farmers but owned by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historical Preservation (OPRHP) and managed by the Town of Hillsdale. Among other things, this arrangement means that the land will never have houses constructed on it and can remain beautiful, open land for a variety of recreational and agricultural purposes. The accompanying 2 maps show development plans in 2002 for this land and the current park and its agricultural acreage.
How this land came to be owned by the state and managed by Hillsdale is certainly an atypical occurrence. In the last several years, the OPRHP has been purchasing sections of the abandoned Harlem Valley Rail Road bed in Columbia County to link it with the existing Harlem Valley Rail Trail (www.hvrt.org) in Dutchess County. As the accompanying park map illustrates, the parcel of (park) land that the state bought last year has at least a mile of rail trail located on it. While the rail trail is located only on the west side of Route 22, the former owner of this land wanted to sell the entire property as a whole.
The Office of Parks was aware that Hillsdale had been looking for years for land for ball fields. (Each town has their own as local demand for playing fields is very high). An innovative agreement with the town was made. The OPRHP owns the land and Hillsdale rents the land for one dollar a year and MANAGES IT FOR RECREATIONAL, AGRICULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL USES. The town board appointed a park steering committee to help manage the park and to develop an interim plan in order to make it useable and enjoyable for the public. The improvements and changes one sees today are a result of the Park Steering Committee’s work with the help of many, many volunteers and generous donations from foundation grants and private donors.
As you explore the park, please think about what you’d like to have in the park. In addition to ball fields, some of the many ideas suggested thus far include an ice skating area, equestrian trails, an outdoor amphitheatre to host cultural events and renting out the beautiful large barns for income generating events such as weddings.
The evolution of the Roeliff Jansen Park will obviously be a long-term project. While some of the ideas for the park may seem far beyond the original idea of ball fields, the more unique ones could attract visitors to the area and bring income not only to the town to help cover the costs of running the park but also to community businesses. Now is the moment to be imaginative especially as the trend towards closer-to-home entertainment destinations becomes the reality of a more energy conscious, locally oriented world.
The plans and their realization will take time but while we wait for them to evolve, we have a beautiful park with an abundance of open land and great farm buildings in which to hold community events.
Community Planning Process: The design phase will begin as soon as state funding becomes available. During this process, a professional team of park design consultants will work with the community to create a short-term and long-term plan for the RJP.
2002 Proposed Development Plan
2008 Actual Agricultural Plan
