Stony Creek Reservoir in southern Clifton Park is a magnificent piece of undeveloped property in a town under heavy development pressure. The town rightly wants to preserve it as open space — and, even better, use it for passive recreation like hiking, fishing, rowboating, canoeing and kayaking. Unfortunately, it doesn’t own the water and land around it; the town of Colonie does. And Colonie apparently is prepared to sell it to the highest bidder.

The reservoir is Colonie’s back-up water supply but hasn’t been used in many years. So the town, which has a $10.8 million deficit (down from $19.7 million a few years ago), wants to sell the property. And Clifton Park, in partnership with the Open Space Institute, wants to buy it. But months of negotiations between the two towns failed to produce the price that Colonie wants, so it has put out a request for proposals that requires offers to start at $8.7 million. Proposals are due by Oct. 23.

While we appreciate Colonie’s desire for a quick fix to its financial problems, we believe it should be willing to take less to keep the property in Clifton Park’s hands. That’s because we agree with Supervisor Philip Barrett’s assertion that “Clifton Park is the best and most viable option with regard to ownership.”

That is, the town will put the reservoir property’s 900 acres to the best use and protect it the best. Developing the surrounding land into a housing subdivision, for example, could potentially threaten the quality of the water, which Colonie wants to retain the rights to. It is unlikely that the state Health Department would drop its current restrictions on use of the reservoir property for recreation if it were privately owned and ringed by development.

As for most viable option, Clifton Park is it. How many developers are going to plunk down $8.7 million in this economy, with construction loans and mortgages so hard to get? How many are going to do it knowing that Colonie wants to keep the water rights? Knowing that the property contains wetlands and steep slopes, which would make development problematic, especially since the town of Clifton Park would have to approve any plan and issue any permits? And knowing that protection of the reservoir property is a goal of both the town’s Open Space Plan adopted in 2003 and New York state’s Open Space Plan?