The Logan Township supervisors plan to consider an offer from the state Game Commission to place the 100-acre Strawberry Hills tract west of Juniata into the commission’s Hunter Access Program.

Joining the program would provide legal access for hunting in exchange for liability protection for the township, patrols by game wardens, land management help, free seedlings and bird boxes and appropriate signage, according to game warden Salvatore Zaffuto, who pitched the program on an invitation from Police Chief Dave Reese, an official said.

The Game Commission patrols would help stem illegal incursions by all-terrain vehicles and illegal hunting, although hiking and bicycling would be permitted, officials said.

The supervisors would probably limit the hunting to archery, because of nearby homes, and would probably prohibit trapping, because of danger to pets, according to supervisors Chairman Jim Patterson.

The supervisors could set the rules and adjust them as needed, Zaffuto said.

There seemed to be a consensus in favor of the proposed arrangement.

“What I’m hearing is great,” Supervisor Ron Heller said.

Regulation of the ATVs “would make the neighbors happy,” Patterson said.

Residents would have an opportunity to comment on the proposal before the supervisors vote formally on whether to approve it, they said.

The township could withdraw from the program whenever it wanted, although the commission asks for 60 days’ notice, Zaffuto said.

The Hunter Access Program began in 1936 and now includes 13,000 parcels throughout the state, according to the commission website.

A 2018 master plan for Strawberry Hills calls for development of several miles of looping trails through woods and fields, three multi-purpose athletic fields, a playground, two picnic pavilions, a picnic grove, a lawn for casual play, a municipal complex comprising a fire-training tower, indoor shooting range and maintenance shed, four strategically placed parking areas and the extension of a street through the tract from Juniata to Grandview.

What gets built and when would depend on funding — especially from grants, Patterson said after presentation of the plan in 2018.

The township acquired Strawberry Hills by donation from a bankruptcy trust in 2015.

It was originally proposed as the site of a residential development in the late 1990s.

The project stalled after objections based on the ground having once been the site of a landfill used heavily by the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The initial developer went bankrupt, but in 2005 another developer began working with the bankruptcy trustee to construct 76 homes, potentially on the way to constructing up to 600.

But the company never followed through, due to problems that included trouble obtaining two access routes.

The DEP has imposed a blanket prohibition against using any of the site for residential construction, because of pollution from the landfill.

There are two approximately 20- by 20-foot areas that must be isolated from public use with a two-foot topping of clean fill or fencing.

The tract is bounded on the east by North Ninth Avenue, on the west by North 19th Avenue, on the south by North Sixth Street and on the north by North 13th Street.