The
State Agriculture Development Committee (SADC)
certified development values in the low or middle
ranges for nearly 90 percent of the 145 farms it
has recommended for preservation under a funding
request that has been submitted to the State Legislature. "This
process has resulted in a good deal for the taxpayers
of New Jersey, who will benefit not only from the
preservation of these farms, but from the cost-conscious
approach to preserving them," said Agriculture
Secretary Art Brown, Jr., who chairs the SADC.
The following value summaries for
each farm show the development values recommended
by two licensed, independent appraisers, the value
the SADC certified, the percentage of landowner
discount, and the actual purchase price. The SADC
may certify values as low as the lowest appraisal,
as high as the highest appraisal or somewhere in
between, depending on what it determines to be
the fair market value for the development rights.
For 10 of the 145 farms, the appraisers recommended
identical values, which the SADC certified. Of
the remainder, the SADC certified toward the lower
value on 47 percent of the farms, in the middle
on 42 percent of the properties and toward the
higher value on 11 percent of the farms. In addition,
80 of the 145 landowners offered to sell below
the SADC's certified value, for a savings of $1.5
million. Landowners for the 145 farms have applied
to sell their development rights to their respective
counties under the SADC's county easement purchase
program. The SADC provides cost-sharing grants
of between 60 and 80 percent to help fund those
purchases. To determine how much to pay for those
development rights, the SADC required independent
appraisals from two licensed appraisers for each
farm. Those appraisers took into consideration
all of the factors affecting the farm's development
value, including market conditions, zoning, wetlands
and septic suitability. Now that negotiations with
landowners have concluded, those appraisals are
available for public review at the SADC's offices
in Trenton. The two appraisers made separate value
determinations, which were reviewed by an SADC
staff appraiser. The review appraiser made a recommendation
to the SADC, which certified a final development
value. In the final step of the process, landowners
were required to submit sealed bids containing
their final offers. If landowners chose to sell
below the SADC's certified value, this moved their
farms higher on the preservation priority list.
The SADC had determined initial rankings on the
priority list based on the farms' potential for
agricultural productivity and threat of development. The
Garden State Preservation Trust last Tuesday approved
the SADC's funding request for $36.1 million to
preserve the 145 farms totaling more than 12,000
acres. That request has been forwarded for legislative
approval. The SADC administers New Jersey's Farmland
Preservation Program.
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