August 1, 2000
Friars Hold Firm in 16-Year Land Dispute With Parks Service
By COREY KILGANNON
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Librado Romero/The New York Times
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The Rev. Arthur M. Johnson, at left, and the Rev. Fred Alvarez walk along a portion of the Appalachian Trail adjacent to the Graymoor Spiritual Life Center, a 400-acre area they help run with 43 other friars and 86 nuns.
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ARRISON, N.Y. -- For more
than a century, the Franciscan friars have made the Graymoor Spiritual Life Center, set in a hilly
swath of forest here, their world
headquarters.
Even today, much of Graymoor
is like a page out of Chaucer, with
whispering friars in brown robes
and sandals strolling past abbey-style buildings. Though they may
resemble their legendary jolly
counterparts of yore, today's friars
are hardly known for taking up a
stiff cudgel for bandying errant
knaves who refuse to yield the path.
On occasion, however, they can
be as fiercely territorial as their
forefathers, and they are now fighting to keep a wooded 18-acre section of their property the National
Park Service is trying to acquire.
The parcel is adjacent to the Appalachian Trail, which runs
through Graymoor's 400 acres of
woods in Garrison, about an hour
north of Manhattan, in Putnam
County, and is used extensively by
hikers.
The Park Service, which oversees the 2,144-mile trail stretching
from Maine to Georgia, says the
friars could pose a threat to one
section of trail.
But the friars insist that it is the
Park Service that is encroaching
and starting a land grab that they
say could endanger the future of
their ministries. So they are standing their ground.
Graymoor, the world headquarters for the Franciscan Friars of
the Atonement, was established in
1898. There are 45 friars and 86
nuns living there; they operate a
retreat, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, an ecumenical institute and St. Christopher's Inn, a
homeless shelter.
Graymoor definitely has one foot
in the past with its abbey-style
buildings and wandering friars, but
the friars now wear their robes
over their street clothes, and their
sandals are Birkenstocks. The Rev.
Arthur M. Johnson, minister general of Graymoor, has a secretary
and a computer in his fifth-floor
office in the center's main administrative office building.
The friars say that losing the
parcel involved in the dispute
would cripple their ministry in the
future. Though the only building on
the 18-acre parcel is a maintenance
shed, the land is crucial to the
maintenance of their complex, they
say. Relinquishing rights to it
would hinder maintenance of roadways and other buildings. Also,
they say, the parcel is next to the
center's sewage treatment plant,
and surrendering it would hinder
access to the plant and any expansion in the future.
"We may have to take up archery again," Father Johnson said.
His quip was only partly in jest.
Instead of stout oaken staffs and
longbows, the Graymoor friars are
wielding slightly more modern
weapons: a publicist and a lawyer.
The Park Service already has an
easement on 58 acres of the friars'
property. But the friars said they
did not learn until July that in May,
the Park Service had asked the
Justice Department to order the
friars to sell the government an
easement on 18 more acres as
"buffer land" for the trail, under
eminent domain, a legal procedure
that allows governments to take
land for the public good, like roadways and parks, at its fair market
value. Neither the friars nor the
government would say what the
Park Service was offering, but both
sides privately acknowledged that
it was far less than $10,000 an acre.
Father Johnson said the battle
was not over money but over "the
principle that the federal government thinks it can come in and take
over our land." Allowing the Park
Service to have the parcel, he said,
could open the floodgates to future
government land acquisition.
"Who's to say they won't come
along next time and say they want
more?" he said, adding that the
friars would consider challenging a
forced acquisition in court.
Edie Shean-Hammond, a spokeswoman for the northeast region of
the National Park Service, said the
agency was simply fulfilling its
mandate from Congress to obtain
any land it needs to ensure that the
trail remains continuous.
The relationship between the friars and the trail goes back to 1923,
when they and the trail's organizers agreed to allow the path to
cross an undeveloped wooded area
along the eastern edge of the friars'
property.
In 1984, the Park Service wanted
to move the trail, and paid $116,500
to acquire a formal easement of 58
acres, much closer to the friars'
buildings. Since then, the Park
Service has tried unsuccessfully to
get the friars to give it an easement
on the 18-acre parcel.
Though the friars still technically
own the property covered by the
easement, they cannot build on it or
sell it without permission from the
Park Service.
Ms. Shean-Hammond said that
almost immediately after the friars
sold the government the easement
in 1984, they violated its terms by
building a pump house for the sewage plant on it and by running pipes
under the trail. The Park Service
has decided to seek more of Graymoor's land to preclude a similar
encroachment in the future, she
said.
Father Johnson called the construction of the pump house "a
miscalculation," but noted that the
building is the size of a one-car
garage and is barely visible from
the trail.
"With all due respect for the
Franciscan friars, the land has
been built on," Ms. Shean-Hammond said. "And we have to ensure
that it won't happen again. We're
simply trying to protect the taxpayers' investment in perpetuity."
"Our job is to protect that corridor," she added. "In other cases,
we have acted more immediately,
but we recognize that the friars
have been good hosts to the hikers."
She also voiced concern that the
friars would someday sell the land
to a private developer. Father
Johnson said the friars had no immediate plans to do so, but he would
not rule out such a sale in the
future.
The friars say they are friends of
the trail and have always put up
hikers without charge, often allowing them to camp overnight. Day
hikers may park free, and the friars have built showers, toilets and a
shed for them. Trail users may
roam the entire Graymoor property, use the friars' library, and are
invited to share dinner with the
friars -- usually a salad bar and a
hot meal -- without charge. Some
guide books call Graymoor the
"Hilton of the Appalachian Trail."
Representative Sue W. Kelly, a
Republican whose Congressional
district includes Garrison, wrote a
letter to Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt asking him to have the
Park Service drop the acquisition
proceedings.
"I find this drastic action against
the friars offensive," she wrote,
"and using these strong-arm tactics against the friars is inappropriate."
Touring the property in a sport
utility vehicle, Father Johnson said
that despite its claims against the
friars, the Park Service was the one
encroaching on the property.
"It's like inviting someone for
the weekend," he said, "and all of a
sudden they stay and claim squatters' rights."