Posted on 08/02/2006 9:52:24 AM PDT by Coleus
Like most New Jersey farmers, Chester Stephens has to get a little creative in order to make ends meet. A bit too creative, officials say. Now, Stephens is making his way through the appeals process in an unusual case involving the sale of firewood that calls into question the legal definition of "agriculture." On the farm, a familiar sight to motorists along Flanders-Drakes town Road that's been in his family since the late 1700s, Stephens grows mostly corn and hay while raising beef cows and pigs.
But one field of the 115-acre farm in Mount Olive is given over to piles of tree trunks and limbs felled by local tree-clearing compa nies. After letting the logs dry in the sun, Stephens cuts the logs down to size and sells them as firewood. He and his family do brisk business selling the firewood during the colder months. It brings in 25 percent of their annual income, they say.
"This gets us through the winter -- not only to pay the bills, but as seed money for the dry months in the early spring," said Stephens' wife, Melissa. Although Stephens, 38, said he and his late father have sold firewood this way for more than 20 years, he was issued a notice of violation this spring by the Mount Olive zoning officer.
The March 29 letter from Jay Holler, the township's zoning officer, informed the Stephenses that their "logging operation" counted as a light-industrial use, and that they would have to apply for a variance. "In the ordinance, farming has to be material produced on the property," Holler said last week. What Stephens is doing, he added, "is technically a lumberyard."
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
"A positive feature of arrangements like Stephens' is that they apparently hurt no one, Gregg said. Tree-clearing companies avoid having to pay a fee to dump the wood in a landfill, farmers get extra business, customers get firewood at a discount, and the wood doesn't go to waste. "
Since when does a city bureaucrat want to make sense.
It's farming.
Sheesh.
I take it back.
What fun is there in that?
He's not getting this material from trees he grows himself -- it's getting dropped off there by landscapers and tree-cutters in the area.
Ironically, if this guy is running a commercial operation involving the sale of wood that is harvested from trees grown elsewhere, it would seem logical that the homeowner who paid to have a tree removed from his backyard should qualify for an agricultural land use!
It does appear that he is violation of the law. He apparently still believes that he lives in a free America.
Pity both are true.
But one field of the 115-acre farm in Mount Olive is given over to piles of tree trunks and limbs felled by local tree-clearing companies.
After letting the logs dry in the sun, Stephens cuts the logs down to size and sells them as firewood. He and his family do brisk business selling the firewood during the colder months. It brings in 25 percent of their annual income, they say.
Stephens buys young beef and pigs.
After letting them mature & fatten up, Stephens sells them to butchers for meat. Probably brings in 25 percent of his annual income.
Is he running an 'industrial operation'? -- No doubt he is, -- but we used to call it farming ..
When I first read this I thought the farmer had some kind of coppicing operation. Trees grow mighty quick in New Jersey (at least compared to up here in Alaska) and a few acres of trees could easily be harvested for small logs for many years as long as the stumps remained in the ground and the sprouting was controlled to produce firewood-sized logs.
But this guy is using someone else's wood piled up on his land. Get a business license, talk to the zoning board. Sorry, Charlie.
How about this approach --
The tree parts dropped off are for mulch and soil amendments for his own farm (agricultural use).
The most useful parts are some leaves, small chunks of bark, and sawdust. The rest, too large to plow into his farm, are waste and are disposed of by sawing into smaller pieces and selling to the public.
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