Township Committee hopes to preserve farm.
By: Josh Appelbaum
The Township Committee introduced an ordinance Monday that would provide money to the nonprofit group Delaware and Raritan Greenway for a portion of the preservation of the Kiesler property on John White Road.
The group is seeking $200,000 from the township and $200,000 from Middlesex County to preserve the 28.6-acre farm on John White Road for agricultural use and for a nature preserve. If D&R doesn’t receive money from the county, Cranbury will pay $400,000.
The proposed ordinance would allow the township to give either $200,000 or $400,000, depending on whether the county decides to contribute $200,000.
The Kiesler property, a hay farm, stretches over Cranbury’s border with Plainsboro in the Millstone River stream corridor.
Committeewoman Pari Stave said during a Nov. 22 Township Committee work session that the Kiesler property is valuable to the township and that it is in Cranbury’s best interest to participate in the D&R deal to preserve five buildable lots.
At the Nov. 22 meeting Committeeman Michael Mayes spoke out against the proposal. Mr. Mayes said the Kiesler property is a low-value land and the committee should save money for higher-priority acquisitions.
Mr. Mayes was not present for Monday’s vote, and the measure passed 4-0. A public hearing and vote on adoption will be held Dec. 20.
D&R Greenway would own the property and the ordinance would provide for access to the property, which is in Millstone River stream corridor.
Bill Rawlyk, a senior land acquisition specialist for D&R, said the group also is in negotiations to obtain 7.5 acres of the White property, which would be donated by its owner, Kevin White. The lands would be joined to make a contiguous stream corridor preserve protecting highly valued wetlands, threatened and endangered grassland birds and maintaining the area’s biological diversity.
Mr. Rawlyk said his organization is under contract with the Kiesler family until the end of the year to buy the property from the family. The owners declined to enter it into the county farmland preservation program and chose to work with D & R after they announced in February they would sell the farm and move out of Cranbury.
Mr. Rawlyk said the group has secured funds from the state Agricultural Development Commission’s Nonprofit Farmland Preservation Program to cover half the cost of the acquisition. Mr. Rawlyk would not comment on how much the acquisition will cost, but said the Kieslers were selling to D&R for less than market value. The sale and use of the property will have to meet all state farmland preservation guidelines.
D&R is central New Jersey’s regional land conservancy. It protects and preserves central New Jersey’s open space and the land along the Delaware & Raritan Canal and the streams flowing through the surrounding 1,000-square-mile region. It also protects woodlands, wetlands, stream corridors, scenic vistas and open fields.
The Greenway already has preserved the Frostega farm adjacent to the Underwood farm on Dey Road. The preservation cost the township $70,000.

