Recreation and repopulation were the topics of the day at the Lycoming County commissioners meeting, with Shannon Rossman, director of planning and community development, offering the latest update on the White Deer Golf Course land conversion project.

The conversion involves about 70 acres of land, which the county purchased from the Pennsylvania College of Technology, to be used for recreation, allowing another portion of the 400-plus acres of county land to be offered for housing.

“We would like to take five underused portions of that property that either are not used at all or the one section has the free disc golf course on it…we’d like to provide some additional housing in that area. That is one of our growth quarters along Route 15 and in Clinton Township, and it’s very near where the Earth Science Center is for Penn College,” she said.

The property is located along Fritz’s Station Road and currently has sewer lines. Water lines are expected to be moved down along Route 15 toward the area of Sheetz, which would then provide water for the golf course and the Penn College facility.

Because of a grant received in the 1970s, which federalized the whole property and stipulated that it could only be used for recreational purposes, the conversion is required in order for any kind of development to be done on the 70-acre portion.

“In order to take those five parcels that total about 70 acres and do something more growth-oriented for that corridor, and to benefit that area with housing or other types of items, we have to convert. So what we have to do is we have to purchase a similar type property nearby that will allow us to transfer recreational (zoning) from those five port parcels to that parcel,” Rossman said.

The county is proposing the new recreational area, which was formerly Penn College property, will have a parking area, passive recreation and also start on the southern section of the trail that eventually we’d like to have on the Susquehanna River, Rossman said.

“There is an old rail line there that has been vacated … what we’d like to do is upgrade that rail line to a rail trail and improve the bridge that’s there currently. We will be taking down an old structure from World War II that was used for water pumping to the munitions plants that were out behind the old Allenwood Federal Prison camp, and eventually we’d be connecting that into further trails, both north and south. The hope is to eventually connect to the Riverwalk,” she said.

In order to do the conversion, the county has to go through the state’s Department of Conservation and the National Park Service because of the federal grant the county received initially.

“We have to prepare the environmental assessment, which looks at the property — is there anything that we’re going to harm by doing what we’re doing? We don’t believe there is. We’re replacing a recreational opportunity with another recreational opportunity. It’s a little different. It’s not disc golf, but it is a different type of recreational opportunity, which we think would be very well received by our county residents, especially with the potential for future biking along the Susquehanna River,” Rossman said, in reference to the Lycoming Composite Mountain Bike Team, which was visiting the commissioners’ meeting.

“We also have to say what we’re going do with the property. We also have to have a plan, which is basically, at this point in time, we just want to make the bridge safe. Have a parking area and have a trail that goes down to the bridge and the water so people can do passive recreation at this time — fishing, kayaking. And we’d be looking to remove the old pump station. So that’s what we intend to do for the near future,” she said.

Long term, once the county finishes the Parks and Recreation update, it then would go after additional funding in order to extend the trail.

“The comment period for the environmental assessment ends at the end of August. Once we receive any comments, what we do is we’ll submit them with our final application to DCNR. They’ll review it. If they approve it, then they’ll send it to the National Park Service and the National Park Service will then have to review and approve for us to convert.

“We can’t purchase the property or move forward until they give us that approval,” Rossman said.