Posted on 12/07/2002 5:39:00 AM PST by sauropod
Piscataway gets OK to condemn farmland
December 3, 2002
By Patrick Jenkins, Star-Ledger Staff
pjenkins@starledger.com
732-634-3607
To submit a Letter to the Editor: eletters@starledger.com
The future of the Cornell Dairy Farm was decided yesterday when a state judge granted Piscataway the power to condemn property that has been at the center of a bitter, three-year legal battle between the Halper family and township officials.
Superior Court Assignment Judge Robert Longhi rejected arguments by Halper attorney John J. Reilly to dismiss the condemnation proceeding.
Longhi restated his ruling from June 2000 that Piscataway had a legitimate purpose in taking the 75-acre tract at South Washington Avenue and Metlars Lane, in the southeast section of the township.
Longhi said he would appoint three commissioners to determine the value of the farm, which has been in the Halper family for 80 years.
Although she said she expected the decision, family member Clara Halper was devastated.
"I felt it was decided before today, but it's still sad to see your home taken away," a tearful Halper said. "It's sad to see, in my lifetime, the erosion of our rights. Everything our relatives fought for have been taken away. They fought for freedom and they've been slapped in the face."
Halper said the family would appeal the ruling.
"Your home is supposed to be your castle, your safe haven," Halper said. "Now they've shown us we don't have any safe haven, we don't have any rights."
But Piscataway Mayor Brian Wahler said he thought the judge made the correct decision.
Wahler said the township would negotiate with the Halpers on the value of the farm.
"In fairness to the Halpers, the offer has to be reasonable. The last thing we want is that they are paid money that is not fair market value," he said.
The township initiated the condemnation proceedings in December 1999, with an offer of $4.3 million, based on appraisals at that time, Wahler said.
He said the property would be used for open space, most likely passive pursuits such as hiking trails. Active pursuits, such as basketball courts or soccer fields, are banned by the covenant covering the condemnation proceedings, Wahler said.
The condemnation was put on hold for nearly two years while the Halpers, with the township's support, applied for admission into the farmland preservation program.
The application died in August when the Halpers rejected an offer of slightly more than $3 million for the development rights for their farm, and the township restarted the condemnation.
Wahler said then and again yesterday that he did not understand why the Halpers rejected the offer since they could have kept the farm in perpetuity or, if they later decided to sell, could do so for market value to someone else who wanted to operate the farm.
The township began the condemnation proceedings after officials said they learned that the Halper family tried to sell the farm to a developer who was going to put up more than 100 homes. [Where is the PROOF of this hearsay?]
They said Piscataway could not handle the traffic nor afford the additional costs of schools and other services those additional homes would generate.
The Halpers have long denied they intended to sell the property for development, saying they want to continue to live there and operate it as a farm.
As the last operating farm in Piscataway, it features egg sales, horse and pony rides, a horseback riding academy, horse boarding and grazing and hay rides.
The Halpers also grow nursery stock, vegetables, fruits, flowers, shrubs, ornamentals and pumpkins and sell agricultural supplies.
Several Piscataway residents who support the Halpers were in court yesterday, including Dan and Nancy Swarbrick.
"We've been lifelong Democrats but we just voted Republican because of what the Piscataway Democrats are doing," said Nancy Swarbrick.
"People have a right to own property," she said. "They're stripping away the Constitution."
After Longhi issued his ruling, Dan Swarbrick yelled, "You soulless old man. You're stealing a family's home. This is not over."
Clara Halper said the only good thing she sees coming out of the whole proceeding is that a strong property rights movement is growing across the country and in New Jersey.
"We are joining to protect and preserve what our forefathers fought for -- the American Dream. This is not what the authors of the Constitution envisioned," she said.
Get off this "for the good of the all" idealization, it is pure poision! The destruction of the American dream! ok, so still, what does any of this have to do with Clara? Why does she have to lose her farm, land and home, because she "might" sell it to developers?
That was exactly the point of my post. Clara would be in the same position as the farmer I used in my example. She can be "under her own master plan" for as long as she wants. Anyone who buys her land can be "under his own master plan" as long as he wants. What triggers the change in "controlling master plan" is an application by the land owner for a change in land use that requires a connection to the municipal water and sanitary sewer systems.
None of this would be an issue if every property owner dealt with his own water supply and sanitary sewer service. The whole purpose of a master plan is to maintain some level of control over the number of residents who are using a municipal water supply. If there were no such controls (and I'd be perfectly willing to accept a scenario like this), then poor Clara's farm would be worthless as anything other than a farm because nobody who builds 100 homes could ever pay the cost of providing water to those homes. If the municipality designs a trunk line for 1,000 homes, and someone wants to buy Clara's land to build 100 homes, then that developer would have to pay the entire cost of ripping out the "old" trunk line (which may have been in the ground for all of three years) and replacing it with one that is capable of delivering water to 1,100 people.
Which works just fine until the next developer needs an 1,150-home trunk line. And so the whole process starts all over again. I wouldn't mind having such a system in place, but you have to understand that the end result will be that everyone would have to live in a rural area except for those who can afford the $500,000 price tag for a very modest suburban home. Or everyone would live in a 400 square-foot apartment in a high-rise building made of cinder blocks, because that's the density that would be required to offset the enormous cost of delivering the water.
I'm glad to hear that you love your rural lifestyle so much (and I wish I could live that way myself!), but living in rural West Virginia has absolutely no relevance to the situation that is described here in the largest metropolitan area in the U.S.
The State does own the property. You are just renting it from them. Don't believe me-stop paying your property taxes-they'll foreclose on you in a heart beat.
We have such a country based on these individual rights and must protect them! That means we need to get our heads out of the sand, and start enforcing these rights! You still did not answer the question, what North American city?
And I agree with you 100%. But we're pissing in the wind about that private property ownership until we tear up every public utility that has ever been constructed in this country.
THAT is my point.
If we could all live on the banks of a river in West Virginia, then this wouldn't really be an issue. But we don't.
Looking forward to shaking the dust of this town from my sandals!
As for the Halpers, it's important to note how integral the farm is to the local area. People use it for horseback riding. Hiking? Yeah, right. The farm is in the middle of busy streets and hardly easy to get to on foot for most Piscataway residents. That area isn't designed for walking or biking. You'd be taking your life into your hands to do so.
The Halpers' reason for rejecting the farm preservation offer was that it was so restrictive that they wouldn't be able to repurpose parts of their farm even for other farming purposes, should the farm's economic change. From what I understand, they simply wanted to exempt part of the property to keep future options open. All of this wouldn't be a problem if Piscataway would stop their ticking clock of condemnation and simply try to find a satisfactory compromise with the Halpers that (A) keeps the farm a farm, (B) justly compensates the Halpers for the loss of the development value of the property, and (C) allows the Halpers some flexibility to repurpose parts of the farm for other farming uses. I get the impression from what I've read in the local papers that Piscataway is the problem, not the Halpers.
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