A Middlesex County town is moving to seize a 175-year-old family farm to build a large affordable housing development. I don't understand why towns don't figure out how many affordable apartments they will need to build in advance, and plan where to build them in place of yet another warehouse. Now the town is worried about breaking the state affordable housing quota and have to take citizen's home and livelyhood away.
OT: Another NJ farm to be seized
- Thread starter Extra Point_rivals157299
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What the hell is wrong with Middlesex County? Piscataway pulled the same type of crap with the Halper farm, and last I recall driving by, nothing has happened with that property, which was seized in 1999.
In Monmouth County, the greedy County Commissioners tried to seize the airport from private ownership and they failed when the owner fought back.
In Monmouth County, the greedy County Commissioners tried to seize the airport from private ownership and they failed when the owner fought back.
40 years of poor public planning. Grew up in Middlesex County. Each time I go back to visit family I get anxious. So overpopulated. Towns I grew up in both grew in size 100-300% in 35 years.
Tell me you know how local politics works. The town are in cahoots with the County. Check the link I posted. Middlesex County is a solidly Democrat County, and Morris Schiano has to spout his BS. This is a local issue that has nothing to do with the President.
Yes , it a local town issue .
Not county, state or federal.
I think the farm owners will prevail.
The farm will not be harmed
Eminent domain of private property for COAH housing is beyond disgusting. NJ is politically rotten to its core.
NJ's Mount Laurel decisions were on the late 70s and with the state legislature establishing COAH and its mandates soon after (IIRC). Round 1 obligations were in the 80s and now we are dealing with Round 4.
It goes one step higher. The county gets its marching orders from Trenton. There are a lot of towns fighting back, but all the towns run by local Dems were told by Murphy et al to get in line with Round 4. That's why crazy stuff like this is happening.
Democrats in Middlesex...
The current mayor of Piscataway Township is Brian C. Wahler. Brian Wahler's father-in-law is David Crabiel, who was the Middlesex County Freeholder Director.
Old man Crabiel threatened to punch me at a Freeholder meeting back during my RU days. Good times!
He was heading to jail just like Lynch and Spacuzzo but died before sentencing.
They should seek some sort of historic farm designation or negotiate a conservation easement to keep the government bloodsuckers away. Rectal cranial inversions on that town council.
Housing is a mess because millions of foreigners get shoe-horned into area and it stresses housing, schools, medicine etc. Taxes, rents, maintenance got too high and working people cant easily afford in NE homes (a dozen illegals can pay rents families cant). Wall St can buy the homes with all the tax subsidized monopoly dollars in the wealth transfers from the working, middle class to investment class who get built a chair if/when the music stops
Newark Working to Stem the Tide of Wall Street Investors in the Residential Market
A new study by researchers at Rutgers University reveals the scale of Wall Street’s reach into the Newark, New Jersey, housing market—LLCs and private equity accounted for 47 percent of residential real estate transactions from 2017 to early 2020.
Not to mention the impact of the big increase in short term rentals.
This is a state issue and anytime a town sues the liberal NJ courts shut them down. My friend is a big developer who is taking advantage of all this BS. He says every time he gets sued he ends up with double the proposed units because judges are so crazy
There was an infamous state judge from Middlesex County that ruled for developers for years and years and then.....guess what.....retired and became the lawyer for the largest developer (or builder organization) in the entire state. IIRC, some of his previous decisions were thrown out due to blatant conflict.
It will be an ecological park. It's not scheduled to open until 2027.
https://www.mycentraljersey.com/sto...way-township-nj-park-halper-farm/70013251007/
I found an update on the Piscataway farm
This is a local/county/state matter, please keep it focused on that. The original perpetrator has been banned.
I drive by every day and see nothing happening. Can't figure out what the plan is or if there is a plan. Wasn't it supposed to be a mix of active recreation and housing? We rode horses there as kids. Or at least what could be called trying to ride a horse as a kid.
grew up about 20 mins north of there in Deans (So . Brunswick) and why after I left the area for work in the mid- 80's I never ever gave a thought of moving back into the area when I returned to Jersey in '91. Disgusting over development.
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Yep my exact experience. South Brunswick had 18k when I did a project in middle school. They are close to 60k now. North Brunswick and South Brunswick both had the same population back then. With North Brunswick only being 10square miles and South Brunswick having 40. Bad public planning/over development has lead to severe overpopulation.
We lived in SB from 1990-2009. Loved it then but so glad we moved and every time we go back it looks worse
Route 1 is insane with the development of the old J&J Band Aid property. Thought they were supposed to do a transit village with a new train station. Lived in Gov's Pointe across from the property when it became a Silverline Window factory in the mid to late 1990's. North Brunswick was great back then. Glad we left.
Should have seen it prior to then. That’s when it started to slide.
it was still a good place to start a family. Bought our first house in Kendall Park for 125K. I hear it all the time from my wife who grew up in North B how different it was
It's ultimately a State issue because our Supreme Court has mandated the construction of thousands of affordable units, and municipalities that don't comply are buried in lawsuits.
My brother in laws ex wife was driving to work in NB many years ago, horse jumped the fence right in front of her- killed the horse, totaled the car. She escaped serious injury
I work in this field.
Blaming the towns for building affordable housing is ignorant.
It stems from the NJ Supreme Court deciding that each town is OBLIGATED to provide it's "fair share" of affordable housing - that the provision of affordable housing is a constitutional right.
THEN the State comes up with absolutely ABSURD AFFORDABLE HOUSING OBLIGATIONS for each town that the towns need to address.
If the towns do not come up with a suitable plan addressing how they are going to address their obligation then developers can sue towns (called "Builders Remedy" lawsuits) to FORCE the towns to let them build. and believe me - the builders ALWAYS want to build WAAAAY more than the towns want to allow.
As far as the towns planning in advance - the numbers from the State just came out towards the end of 2024 - there were negotiations and most towns finally settled in court what their obligations are . these settlements occured literally just last month.
NOW that towns know what their actual obligations are - they have until JUNE 30 to submit a plan to the State or.... subject to "Builder Remedy" lawsuits. The State purposely set up these absurd timeframes in the law.
I dont know the specifics of this farm issue but generally blaming towns is ignorant - blame the State for forcing this on towns and giving them VERY LITTLE TIME to properly plan for it. Towns are getting f@*ked..... not one local politician that I've encountered is happy about - they are livid - your local (town) politicians are not the ones to blame here.
again I am speaking generally as I have no information on this farm issue
Blaming the towns for building affordable housing is ignorant.
It stems from the NJ Supreme Court deciding that each town is OBLIGATED to provide it's "fair share" of affordable housing - that the provision of affordable housing is a constitutional right.
THEN the State comes up with absolutely ABSURD AFFORDABLE HOUSING OBLIGATIONS for each town that the towns need to address.
If the towns do not come up with a suitable plan addressing how they are going to address their obligation then developers can sue towns (called "Builders Remedy" lawsuits) to FORCE the towns to let them build. and believe me - the builders ALWAYS want to build WAAAAY more than the towns want to allow.
As far as the towns planning in advance - the numbers from the State just came out towards the end of 2024 - there were negotiations and most towns finally settled in court what their obligations are . these settlements occured literally just last month.
NOW that towns know what their actual obligations are - they have until JUNE 30 to submit a plan to the State or.... subject to "Builder Remedy" lawsuits. The State purposely set up these absurd timeframes in the law.
I dont know the specifics of this farm issue but generally blaming towns is ignorant - blame the State for forcing this on towns and giving them VERY LITTLE TIME to properly plan for it. Towns are getting f@*ked..... not one local politician that I've encountered is happy about - they are livid - your local (town) politicians are not the ones to blame here.
again I am speaking generally as I have no information on this farm issue
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Everyone is to blame (Town, state, county, developers) But if you don't think many of towns planning boards are to blame then I don't know what to tell you. Not every square inch needs to be built upon. I get it my dad was in the real estate development business for ages. Specifically in the area we are talking (Southern Middlesex County) the lot minimums were way too small. I have no problem with affordable housing. I have an issue with high density housing in the wrong environment.
been working in this field for 30 years so I dont think you can explain it to me any better than I already understand it. but thanks.
You can't let the town off the hook here. The issue is a collective one for the town, and they chose to burden one landowner instead of the whole town.
Once again
As I stated atleast twice
I am addressing the comments blaming towns for the affordable housing matter generally
I am not addressing the farm matter specifically as I don’t know the facts of that specific issue
I stated that clearly
Twice
I dealt with this crap for about a decade and had to put together the Round 3 plan for my town. While you are correct that this BS comes from Trenton (courts and leg), you can't let towns off the hook. There is a TON of things a town can do to proactively protect itself from COAH/fair share obligations and the damage they cause. And, on the other hand, a town can really F this up way more than it has to be.
Cranbury trying to steal property from a long-time farm owner is a choice they made. That's on them.
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Can’t disagree with a word you typed
And your comments and mine are both true (to varying degrees depending on the town)
Best of luck to the owners and the people trying to save the farm. Dehousing someone should not be the answer to affordable housing, nor should taking a farm someone still wants to farm. There is merit to the idea of planning for housing near jobs, but an isolated development with no access to the other community things - stores, parks, schools, churches, etc makes no sense at all. Also sticking large numbers of people next to a noisy and unhealthy 12 lane turnpike is an ******* move. It would have made more sense to take the land to build a warehouse there, not that I support that either.
Easy to blame the courts, but overprotective suburban towns created this mess. There are property sellers, willing builders and interested buyers for modest housing. Towns screwed all 3 groups to keep taxes down with large lot size requirements, but in doing so also screwed their own kids and seniors.
Easy to blame the courts, but overprotective suburban towns created this mess. There are property sellers, willing builders and interested buyers for modest housing. Towns screwed all 3 groups to keep taxes down with large lot size requirements, but in doing so also screwed their own kids and seniors.
In 30 years dealing with hundreds (if not thousands of builders) not one want to build “modest housing” without huge increases in density and/or subsidies
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