The Planning Board has adopted its newly drafted farmland preservation plan element of its Master Plan.
The element, adopted on August 18, will now head to the Township Committee and will subsequently yield ordinances to enact the changes. The board spent about an hour discussing the various changes, including one that calls for a “51 percent rule.”
The 51 percent rule requires that 51 percent of the products sold on farms are grown locally on that farm. The township’s current policy requires that 100 percent of the products sold comes from the local farm.
Steve Jany, a local farmer who has served on the Planning Board in the past and maintains the township’s farmland, explained that in many cases, local farmers would like to supplement the sales of their products with other farming products that they may not be able to produce.
He used sweet corn as an example. Sweet corn is grown and harvested three weeks earlier in Delaware than in New Jersey, and local farmers looking to bolster sales of their own products could benefit from being allowed to sell sweet corn from farms located further south.
The Planning Board seemed to agree on the 51 percent rule, although Linda Geevers, the Township Council representative on the board, questioned whether implementing the more lenient rule would hurt the success of vendors at the West Windsor Farmers Market.
Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner said he did not believe it would. In addition, he said, the local township farmers should be a priority.
The board also discussed the construction of buildings that would market farm products. Gardner said he was concerned with height and setbacks from the road. Because most of the farms in the township are located within the rural-residential conservation district, he felt the recommendation to move the setbacks to 100 feet for farm structures built for the purpose of selling products was not sufficient.
Because some of those structures can be permanent or used for storage, both of which suggest the need for larger structures, “I felt those needed to be setback further, perhaps even to 200 feet,” said Gardner.
While the ultimate recommendation that appears in the document calls for setbacks of 100 feet and allows for both temporary and permanent uses, including those for storage, his comments are part of the record. “If someone decided sometime in the future that they want to change the ordinance in some way, they would have to consider that as well,” Gardner explained.
The plan element is intended to continue support for the preservation of agriculture as a viable industry within the township. The draft identifies sites that are to be retained specifically for the continuation of agriculture.
Eight years ago, when West Windsor adopted the first farmland preservation element to its Master Plan, there were plenty of farms that needed to be protected from the grasp of developers. Now, with only about 59 acres targeted for preservation through 2015, officials are shifting their sights toward seeing those already-preserved farms thrive.
The major focus of the plan is promoting agriculture-related businesses, as there are currently none in West Windsor.
Included in the farmland preservation element is the recommendation to adopt an economic element to attract businesses to the community.
