The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education has announced that it is “indefinitely suspending its request for proposals to develop the Boy Scout Tract,” a 24-acre wooded parcel across Port Royal Avenue from the center’s core grounds in Upper Roxborough, according to an email sent on Tuesday, September 6, by the center’s executive director Mike Weilbacher.
As Grid has reported, the center has been exploring the sale of the tract, citing the need for funds to pay for capital improvements. According to the center, the organization lacks the resources to use the tract for programming.
The center’s exploration of the possibility of selling the land to developers sparked a firestorm of opposition from neighbors as well as current and former staff of the organization, with protests planned for Thursday, September 8.
According to Weilbacher’s email, “several potential opportunities for preservation have recently been presented to the organization” and “[t]he Center hopes to announce further news about the preservation of the site in the weeks ahead.”
In an email sent on Tuesday, September 6, Jamie Wyper, president of the Residents of the Shawmont Valley Association, wrote that although he considers the news from the Schuylkill Center to be promising, the protest, as well as the broader advocacy effort, is not pausing. “This is a step in the right direction, but does not commit the Center to zero development on the property. They could still develop a lot of acreage and achieve a lesser preservation goal,” Wyper wrote.
Thank you for keeping watch on this land plus Cobbs Creek and FDR park. Every time trees are downed wildlife are left homeless. The land around the SCEC is home to fox, deer, groundhogs, snakes, turtles, frogs, toads, hawks, and other animals. We volunteers would see them alive and dead along Port Royal Road while manning the detour to protect migrating toads. It makes no sense that an organization with the mission of protecting nature would let land in its possession be sold for development because they aren’t actively using it for programming.