The county is seeking to purchase the Choi property next to the park to extend the Arney’s Mount Trail in the park north through the Springfield countryside to the Burlington County Fairgrounds off Route 206.
Burlington County is close to adding another significant property in Springfield to its inventory of preserved farmland and open space.
The Burlington County Commissioners voted this month to authorize the Department of Resource Conservation to enter into a final contract agreement to purchase the 100-acre Choi family property off Juliustown Road.
The Springfield property is adjacent to Arney’s Mount, the highest elevation in Burlington County, and Burlington County’s Arney’s Mount Park. Resource Conservation plans to use some of the land to extend the Arney’s Mount Trail in the park north through the Springfield countryside to the Burlington County Fairgrounds off Route 206.
The remainder of the property will be deed restricted so it remains in agriculture and then it will be auctioned to a buyer interested in farming it.
Preserving agriculture and open space
The Choi property has been used for grain and row crop production the last few years, and at one time was used to grow vegetables and various greenhouse crops.
It is the second farm adjacent to Arney’s Mount Park that the county is close to preserving. Last fall the county also announced a tentative agreement to preserve close to 270 acres of the Van Wagoner Farm, which is located directly to the east of the park.
Under the tentative agreement, the county will preserve 239 acres of the family farm through the County Farmland Preservation Program. Another 30 acres will be purchased outright as an open space acquisition and will become part of Arney’s Mount Park.
Last summer the State of New Jersey also closed on the preservation of the 70-acre Three Willows Farm in Springfield.
With the addition of Van Wagoner and the Choi properties, more than 6,200 acres of farmland will be preserved in Springfield through the traditional New Jersey and Burlington County farmland preservation programs, the most of any Burlington County town.
Extending Arney’s Mount Trail
Arney’s Mount Park consists of approximately 186 acres of land acquired by the county in 2003 and 2025. The county opened the park’s trail head and multiple interior trails in 2022. The trails consist of a 2.2-mile asphalt path up and around Arney’s Mount, along with 2.45 miles of equestrian turf trails and several shorter “challenge trails” through the woods along the base of the mount. The park also has a parking area, picnic pavilion, and an accessible horse mounting platform.
The proposed trail extension, called the Arney’s Mount Fairgrounds Connector, is proposed to travel from the Arney’s Mount trailhead off Juliustown Road northwest through a portion of the Choi property. The path is expected to extend 3.5 miles to the Burlington County Fairgrounds.
Plans for the Connector trail are still being developed. Burlington County has already been awarded a $3.2 million grant for the trails design and construction.
All the county’s trails are part of the planned 850-mile Circuit Trails network that is expected to connect Burlington County with surrounding South Jersey counties and five Pennsylvania counties in the Greater Philadelphia region.
