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Valley Community Land Trust: an independent account

Shearer Farm: What the Public Record Shows

This site is an independent account of the Valley Community Land Trust (VCLT), written by a VCLT leaseholder and member since 1987 who served on its board until June 2026. Its first three parts describe VCLT’s structure, its history, and whether its housing is affordable.

This page comes first because VCLT is raising money from the public for its proposed purchase of the Shearer Farm at 270 Greenfield Road in Colrain. The farm is about 163 acres, and this would be the largest purchase in VCLT’s history.

About this page

This page draws only on public sources and on materials VCLT members or donors have received: public records, including town and registry filings and Colrain’s Zoning Bylaw; statements made at public meetings; organizations’ own public websites; VCLT’s governing documents; and project materials, board minutes and reports distributed to VCLT members or circulated to donors. It uses no board-only documents. Each finding is tied to a named, dated source listed at the end. The page describes what those sources say and asks questions. It does not make claims about anyone’s intentions.

What is proposed

According to The Land Project’s overview dated August 17, 2026, distributed to VCLT members:

A later overview, dated November 6, 2026 and circulated to donors, no longer mentions the barn explicitly (see “The barn” below).

The overview’s $1.62 million goal is not the contract’s requirement. VCLT’s October 2026 report to members says the purchase agreement requires only the first $375,000 by February 2027, which begins a series of staggered closings. That deadline can be extended three months if all parties agree.The board’s reports to members describe a $100,000 “spendable deposit” loaned to the Shearers by three parties; the money did not pass through VCLT. The reports do not say how it has been spent.

A director’s preschool and the arsenic finding

A University of Massachusetts lab sample taken at Shearer Farm on April 3, 2026, during VCLT’s due diligence, found arsenic at 41.6 milligrams per kilogram. That is more than twice the 20 mg/kg MassDEP standard for the most sensitive soil category, which covers residential use and places where children play. The likely source is pesticide from the farm’s decades as an apple orchard. The board’s October 2026 report to members acknowledged “contamination in a limited area where the historic apple orchards were” and said the result was expected. No document made available to members shows where the sample was taken, how far the contamination extends, or whether any further testing has been done. The appraiser was not told of the finding until September 9, 2026, more than five months after the test.

The project’s November 6 donor overview names Sapling School as one of three enterprises that will “anchor the site at the outset.” Sapling School is a part-time forest preschool in Colrain. According to its own website, it was co-founded by Gabriella della Croce, the VCLT director who leads the Shearer Farm acquisition, and another parent, who run it together as worker-owners. At the Colrain Selectboard meeting on September 22, Ms. della Croce told the board she is licensed as a home daycare and has run the preschool out of her home for three years. She described plans for a multi-purpose community space at Shearer Farm for farm- and nature-based education for children, to be used by others and, in her words, “myself included.”

A program like this is built around children playing outdoors, in the soil, for most of the day. Young children are also the people most exposed to contaminated soil, because they ingest more of it than anyone else. No project document reconciles these two facts. None says where on the property the children’s program would operate, how far that would be from the contaminated orchard ground, or whether the soil there has been tested. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health runs a program called Choose Safe Places to help child care programs avoid sites with environmental hazards. Its checklist asks about a property’s former uses and whether an environmental assessment has been done, and for group child care programs that assessment is a regulatory requirement; whether a family child care program operating there would trigger it is unclear.”

The donor overview’s biography of Ms. della Croce describes her preschool. It does not mention that she sits on VCLT’s board or that she leads VCLT’s side of the acquisition. Donors are not told what she told the Selectboard: that she expects to use the property for her own program. A donor reading the overview would not learn that a director’s own business is planned as an anchor use of land that donors are being asked to help VCLT buy.

Organizations can do business with their directors’ enterprises. The safeguards are disclosure, a decision by directors without a stake in it, and terms that are fair to the charity. I have asked the board in writing whether Ms. della Croce’s interest in Sapling School was disclosed and reviewed under VCLT’s conflict-of-interest policy, whether she took part in decisions about it, and on what terms the school would use the property. As of 11/12/26, the board has not responded.

The barn

The August 17 overview presented the renovated barn as a centerpiece of the project, a place “to host workshops, volunteer days, celebrations, and cultural events.” The November 6 overview, circulated to donors, no longer mentions the barn explicitly. Dropping it from the overview does not remove it from the purchase. The appraisal values the barn at $370,500, and that value is part of the price donors are being asked to help pay.

The appraisal commissioned for the purchase (Shepherd Associates, dated September 9, 2026, distributed to members) says the barn “was recently built for a potential cannabis business but the operation never started.” It describes the work as “incomplete,” with siding “on site but not installed.” The appraisal reports that the buyer told the appraiser of “structural issues with the barn” on September 9, 2026, the day the report was issued. It then values the barn at $370,500 on the assumption that these issues “will be cured to meet market standards.”

Colrain’s permitting records tell a different story about how the barn came to be. They show a commercial building permit application for 270 Greenfield Road (No. 22-00003), submitted January 14, 2022, to “repair rotting support columns,” pour new footings to support the building, and replace rotting exterior walls. Construction plans were filed three times in 2022. No permit was issued, and no inspections are recorded. The application was closed in October 2025 and marked denied.In 2025, before any purchase by VCLT, the barn’s temporary roofing was replaced with an asphalt shingle roof. The town’s permitting records, provided in response to a public records request on October 5, 2026, include no permit for that work.

The feasibility study prepared for VCLT (Noble Home, progress draft dated December 1, 2025, distributed to members) drew on discussions with structural engineer Jacob Smith, P.E. It found the barn “in questionable structural condition.” It said a full evaluation would be needed before any use other than agriculture, since any “housing or assembly use requires strict building code adherence” before the building inspector would issue a certificate of occupancy. It concluded that the barn is best limited “to farming activities, storage, etc with minimal occupation by the public.”

The August 2025 home inspection obtained for the project did not cover the barn (see below).

After the August overview was issued, VCLT’s board told members in its October 2026 report that the barn “is likely only suitable for agricultural use or equipment storage and is unable to host solar panels on the roof.” The same report says the feasibility study has not been updated since before June.

The feasibility study also describes the sugar house, which holds the commercial kitchen, as having “a serious mold issue.” It recommends keeping that building “as an accessory building for storage / workshop use.”

The farmhouse

The home inspection of the farmhouse (Four Season Inspections, August 20, 2025, prepared for the director of Willow PREC, a project partner; distributed to members) reported, among other findings:

The inspection was “stopped at the client’s request before the inspection was completed,” and the report says it “should be considered incomplete.” It covers only the main dwelling and two attached garage bays.

The appraisal does not mention the inspection. It rates the house “Average/good” for both quality and condition, and states that “overall, the dwelling is in average/good condition.”

The farmland is already affordable to farmers

Most of the farm’s open land has been protected since 1995 and 2002 by Massachusetts’ Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) program. The state paid to remove the right to develop the land, so its price reflects its value as farmland, not as house lots. That keeps it within reach of working farmers.

The program works. The project’s own appraisal estimates that the restrictions hold about $738,000 of development value off this land. It also notes that the sellers have offered a farmer an option to buy a 13-acre restricted parcel for about $39,000, roughly $3,000 an acre. That is typical of restricted farmland in the area: in 2021, about 51 acres of APR land in South Deerfield sold to a farmer for $200,000, under $4,000 an acre (Franklin Registry, Book 7812, Page 303).

This farm is not unusual. Franklin County has more APR-protected farmland than any other Massachusetts county: about 15,600 acres on more than 241 farms as of 2017. As then–Senate President Stanley Rosenberg said of the program, it helps “make it possible for new farmers who don’t have land to get access to land.”

For farmers in this area, the main barriers are the cost of housing and of starting a farm business. The public has already paid once to make this farmland affordable. Most of the purchase price lies elsewhere: in the house, the barns, and land that is not under the restriction.

Who benefits from donations

People who give to a community land trust usually assume they are helping make land and homes affordable for people who could not otherwise get them. The project presents itself to donors in those terms.

Under the plan, land bought with tax-deductible gifts will be used by a private company that owns the buildings and chooses its own members. The summary of The Land Project’s proposal distributed to members says its current members “represent 8 family units.” It envisions “a mix of full-time residents, seasonal farmers, visiting members, and community guests,” with “a small number of people” living on the property full-time at first. The group expects to grow to 11 to 13 family units after the property is secured.

The model ground lease published for community land trusts takes a different approach. It requires homeowners to live in their homes for a minimum of six or more months each year, states a goal “to promote resident ownership,” and limits resale to income-qualified buyers at prices kept affordable for them. Neither VCLT’s Articles and bylaws nor the project materials distributed to members describe any income or net asset eligibility requirement, or any residency requirement, for those who will live on or benefit from this land.

The full Land Project proposal, including its financial projections and membership terms, has not been distributed to VCLT members, who received only an abbreviated summary. Without it, neither members nor donors can see what membership in The Land Project costs, what its investors receive, or who may join.

Housing: what the town’s rules and records show

The property is in Colrain’s Rural District. Under the Zoning Bylaw (as revised June 14, 2022):

The feasibility study found that on the roughly nine acres around the existing buildings, “at most, two new building lots could be subdivided off.” It also sketched approximately four single-family cluster lots on the Jurek Road parcel. The board’s October report says informal tests near Jurek Road helped The Land Project understand that land’s development potential, “though they do not have immediate plans to build there.” The project’s materials do not say where its 4–8 units would go.

The only soil evaluation and percolation test on file was performed May 26, 2026, by Homestead Inc., and witnessed for the Board of Health by FRCOG, which provided the records on July 3, 2026. It shows:

As of July 3, FRCOG had no soil records for the Jurek Road parcel.

Who will farm the land

Revival Road Farm was listed first among the project’s farms in the proposal summary members received in June 2026. That summary describes it as hoping to grow vegetables, herbs, flowers, berries, fruit trees, and small livestock at Shearer Farm. The board’s October report says it “has decided to move elsewhere,” and the farm’s own fall newsletter says it is moving to southern New Hampshire for 2027. The two farm businesses now named are Bucket Mountain Chestnut Farm and Twig Daddy Nursery.

What VCLT’s own rules say about keeping land

VCLT’s Articles of Organization give as its first purpose:

“To acquire and hold title to land, not as private or public property, but in trusteeship; to hold such land in stewardship for present and future generations by keeping said land from the pressures of speculation.”

Its bylaws (Article VII, as amended June 9, 2013) state that selling or encumbering VCLT land, such as mortgaging it or placing a lien on it, “does not conform to the VCLT’s main purposes.” They allow it in only two situations: a crisis caused by nuisance on neighboring land, or VCLT’s economic survival. Even then, it requires the unanimous written consent of the board, the unanimous written consent of the affected leaseholders, and either the unanimous written consent of eligible members or approval by three-quarters of the full membership.

The bylaws require member approval to sell land, but not to buy it. VCLT’s members have not been asked to decide whether to make this purchase.

Questions

  1. Where on the property was the April 3, 2026 arsenic sample taken? Has any further testing been done to map the contamination, and will the results be shared with members and donors?
  2. Where on the property would Sapling School or any other children’s program operate, and has the soil there been tested? Has an environmental assessment been done for that use?
  3. Was Ms. della Croce’s interest in Sapling School disclosed to the board and reviewed under VCLT’s conflict-of-interest policy? Did she take part in any related decisions, and on what terms would the school use the property?
  4. Will the donor materials be updated to disclose that a VCLT director leading the acquisition co-owns one of the project’s anchor enterprises?
  5. Will VCLT commit in writing to hold this land permanently, with no planned transfer to The Land Project, its farms, or anyone else?
  6. What permits, if any, cover construction of the large barn and its 2025 roof replacement? Has the barn been fully evaluated, and what would it cost to make it usable for public events? Is that cost in the $3.36 million budget?
  7. The November 6 overview no longer mentions the barn. Will donors be told what the board told members in October: that the barn is likely suitable only for agricultural use or storage, cannot carry rooftop solar, and is valued at $370,500 within the purchase price? Will VCLT’s own website and fundraising pages be updated to match?
  8. What housing is proposed, on which lots, and where has septic suitability been tested?
  9. What income, asset, or residency requirements, if any, will apply to people who live on or benefit from the land, and who will set them?
  10. Will VCLT share The Land Project’s full proposal, including its financial projections and membership terms, with members and donors?
  11. How are tax-deductible donations made through VCLT kept separate from assets owned by The Land Project, LLC and its investors?
  12. Has any of the $100,000 spendable deposit been used for improvements to the property, such as the 2025 barn roof? If so, who authorized the work, and was it permitted?

Sources