Nine months after Jeanne Picard Fish was declared “incapacitated” and placed in a nursing home, her property — close to 90 acres with an historic barn and house at the foot of the Helderbergs — is about to be sold for $660,000 in a way that will protect 80 percent of the land from future development.

ALBANY COUNTY — The Albany County Soil and Water Conservation District has been providing conservation assistance to agricultural, rural, suburban, and urban constituents since 1945.

“A huge number of people have expressed interest in [finding] an alternative to development,” said Mark King, executive director of the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy. “We’re trying to wrangle those interests into something we could present as an alternative.”

The property has an historic house and barn, which are to be demolished, and is also in the midst of the Helderberg Conservation Corridor.

“I’ve always said, ‘If you build it, they will come,’” said New Scotland Councilman William Hennessy after the town received a $411,000 state grant to restore the historic Hilton Barn and add amenities to the park that surrounds it.

“I realized I wanted to take care of the larger planet,” Anne Rhoads said. “Protecting the forest would support the animals as well.”

For well over a decade, the former Bender melon farm in New Scotland has languished on the market for the princely sum of $4 million. Now, the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy has the opportunity to purchase the 198-acre property for about a quarter of list price, but still well over the full-market assessment of under $800,000 on the county tax rolls.

BETHLEHEM — Eight acres of landlocked farmland will be preserved in Bethlehem as development encroaches.

The land, near the intersection of Route 9W and Wemple Road, was acquired by the not-for-profit Albany County Land Bank from the county for tax foreclosure, and will now be kept open by the town.

The Helderberg Corridor is home to more than 14 species of reptiles and amphibians, Mark King said, noting the diversity is possibly the greatest in the Northeast.

SLINGERLANDS – Birds may have a difficult time obtaining a permit to build a nest on the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy’s latest acquisition of 35 acres at the corner of Fisher Boulevard and Route 85 in Slingerlands.

That’s because of the unusual steps taken in order to conserve the land.