BY CHRIS GAETANO
Staff Writer
Efforts to preserve the 300-year-old VanDyke farm have gained the attentions of Preservation New Jersey, which has placed the South Brunswick property on its list of the top 10 most endangered historic sites this year.
The group, founded in 1978, is a statewide historical society that tries to raise awareness and influence public policy regarding historic preservation.
Preservation New Jersey receives applications each year, all asking for its consideration in placing the property on the Top 10 list. According to the director of the organization, Ron Emrich, this year they processed about 40 applications from across the state. Applicants are judged by a panel of historians, architects, archeologists and other experts along several criteria. They include actual historical significance, the immediacy and seriousness of the threat facing it, and the likelihood of whether it can be saved. It was noted by Emrich that they also like to have some geographic diversity to prevent just one region getting all the attention.
Residents hailed the decision as a positive step, saying that the property’s inclusion on the list would be of great help in preservation.
“I just want to say, we now have another valuable ally in all of [the] efforts to preserve the farm,” said Jean Dvorak, who is a member of the Eastern Villages Association, a community organization that lists preservation of the VanDyke farm as one of its goals.
The VanDyke farm was found to have met all the criteria for placement in the top 10 list.
Its historical significance can be found in the fact that the farm itself is older than America, with the original land for the property ceded to the VanDyke family through a grant from the king of England at the time. The farm was also the site of a slave plantation, one of many that dotted the North before it gradually phased out that institution. It is believed by some residents that the slaves – some of whose quarters are still standing – are buried somewhere on the property.
Meanwhile, the property has been in the crosshairs of developers for more than a year. Developer Joe Morris proposed that the 191-acre farm be rezoned to allow a warehouse to be built on it, but public outcry led to the application’s defeat in February 2005.
In October of 2005, Morris announced his intention to build 76 luxury houses there instead. This application is still waiting to be heard before the South Brunswick Planning Board, but unless action is taken quickly, the houses could go up with little incident, as the land is currently zoned for that purpose. Thus, Preservation NJ saw that the VanDyke farm also met the criteria of the property being under immediate threat.
For those who wish to preserve the property, there remains hope, and this fact is what made the farm eligible for the third criteria. On April 6, representatives from the township, the state Green Acres program and the Department of Environmental Protection met with Morris and his lawyer to discuss the possibility of preserving the land. While the meeting was only a first step, township officials feel optimistic.
According to Morris’s lawyer, Frank Petrino, the developer would be willing to sell the land, provided he could get a fair market value for it. That fair market value will require a great deal of assistance, as it will be an expensive property to buy, but Preservation NJ is confident that “this property could be saved if the parties would agree to talk to one another.”
“I think it met all the criteria. The threat seems immediate, though we know and acknowledge that the township itself and Green Acres are interested in preserving it … and while it certainly represents a unique historic site, the threat to it is not unique. Similar historic resources across the state are threatened by subdivision development,” said Emrich.
Mayor Frank Gambatese expressed positive feelings towards the listing, saying that it would help in their efforts to preserve the land.
“With any of these things … we can add to our cause to try to preserve. It is welcome [and] I’m certainly glad that they did it,” said Gambatese.