By Kristal L. Dearing

FAYETTEVILLE -- More than 50 people gathered Tuesday night to begin discussing ways to help the city buy and preserve a 70-acre undeveloped tract of forest on the east side of Mount Sequoyah.

About a half-dozen local nonprofit organizations were represented at the meeting, but most of the attendees were simply Fayetteville residents concerned about the loss of natural spaces inside the city.

There were no speakers from the city administration.

Mayor Dan Coody offered $1.3 million for the land, known as Mount Sequoyah Woods, on Friday, but his offer is contingent on City Council approval and the city securing funding for the deal.

The council is expected to take up the issue Jan. 7. It could make its decision then or table it until another meeting, but since the city is competing with other potential buyers, the mayor has requested quick action.

Preservation activists said Tuesday that two developers also had made purchase offers on the land, but additional details were unavailable.

The owner of the land, United Methodist Assembly, has said it prefers to sell the woods to a buyer that will restrict development and keep the land in its natural state and open for public use.

Currently, the 70 acres are untouched, except for several trails crisscrossing the property that meet in the center at a picnic table. The land is full of old oak and hickory trees, wildlife and undergrowth.

The tract, which covers the east side of Mount Sequoyah from Skyline Drive downhill to Happy Hollow Road, has attracted a lot of attention, since it is the most visible and well-known forested area in Fayetteville.

The parcel for sale does not include the church and retreat property at the top of Mount Sequoyah.

Coody made his offer Friday after asking the city's Trees and Trails Task Force to put $172,000 of its tree-preservation money toward a down payment on the land.

The task force on Friday recommended that the city spend the rest of the tree-preservation money, which came from the settlement of a lawsuit stemming from the city's preservation ordinance, to buy three parcels of undeveloped land in South Fayetteville. Those three tracts, which total about 21.5 acres, will cost about $294,000.

The task force declined to immediately act on Coody's request for the leftover funds, but it said it would consider it in the next month.

Coody said that, with that money and the $465,000 or so the city could get from selling less-visible land it owns elsewhere, that would make an attractive down payment of about half the $1.3 million asking price.

The mayor said he feared that a smaller down payment would not be able to sway the land owner from accepting a full-cash offer from some other party such as a developer.

Tuesday's meeting was called by the recently established Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association, which is urging every resident, neighborhood group, preservation group, nonprofit and club in the city to support its effort to preserve the woods.

"It is critical for every citizen of Fayetteville to know how important this is and what we could lose (if it is developed)," said Pete Heinzelmann, chairman of the natural heritage association. "We need people to get behind the mayor on this and contact their council members and to attend the council meeting when they will decide whether to buy this."

A Web site for the group, at www.fayettevillenatural.org, will be complete in the next few weeks.

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