Comment by dirtbag__dad
4 days ago
Yes! As another Pennsylvanian, this is a hard requirement for my forever home. The idea that I’d go all-in on a large property in an undeveloped area, only for the surrounding land to get developed or demolished is scary. State game lands is a way to protect against that outcome.
Also a concern is proximity to fracking and now data centers. Not sure how to see if neighbors sold their underground…
As an anecdote, my parent’s home, where I grew up, is a small plot along my town’s watershed property. When the price of lumber went up recently, the town council conveniently remembered that the watershed property was once a massive “tree farm,” and since has leveled all of the surrounding woods. We never expected this. It has been emotionally crushing.
Gonna have the same "issue" with private lands. Over the 20+ years I owned a tree farm in rural Oregon, numerous of the nearby parcels were clearcut. This has benefits too. One day I was up on my ridge and was surprised to see a mountain I had never seen before because the ridge to the north was just clearcut.
Same here, I found my land bordering state game lands in the Poconos for exactly that reason. I'm sorry to hear about the watershed woods; that's the risk with land that isn't actually protected. Fracking leases and mineral rights are a great point too. They're hard to see from public data, but worth thinking about.