After years of cleanup and monitoring, House Hill Farm in Millstone has received a no further action letter from the state for illegal dumping that occurred there in the 80s. However, the accomplishment is bittersweet for the farm’s current owners who are now in jeopardy of losing the property.
CHRIS KELLY staff Betsy Cotter and her dogs Annie and Maggie walk along the pastures at her family’s 53.5-acre House Hill Farm off Baird Road in Millstone. Frank and Betsy Cotter acquired the 53.5-acre parcel in 2001 after it went into foreclosure due to previous owners being prosecuted for illegally dumping waste from Manhattan and Queens transfer stations there. The Cotter family worked for seven years to remediate the 7,500-square-foot illegal landfill on the rear portion of the land and just received a conditional no further action letter from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, which reserves the right to inspect the site to make sure that there has not been any runoff or erosion.
While the Cotters worked to clean up the farm and restore its barns and pastures for use as a spa for racehorses, they also started reconstructing the abandoned farmhouse into a home.
CHRIS KELLY staff House Hill Farm in Millstone serves as the Cotter family’s home and a spa for racehorses. “This is my dream house,” Betsy Cotter said while walking through the now 95 percent complete homestead. “I hope it all doesn’t turn to dust.”
To update the structure, which dates back to the 1800s, they had to move the original farmhouse off its foundation and later restore it to its natural state for additions. In the meantime, the couple has lived in a one-bedroom cottage, which is a former wagon shed, on the land.
The Cotters said they have been interested in preserving the farm from the beginning and started talking with township officials about doing so at least four years ago when Dave Markunas served as chairman of the Open Space and Farmland Preservation Council.
“This is a beautiful farm,” Betsy said. “There are not a whole lot of these around.”
The Cotters knew that preservation would require getting a no further action letter from the state, but now that they jumped that hurdle, they face another.
CHRIS KELLY staff Betsy Cotter shows off a horse that she rescued and has trained at House Hill Farm in Millstone. “The state is out of money for preservation and the township has already made a commitment to who will get to preserve their properties in 2009,” Betsy said. “We were hoping that we would be a priority, but we weren’t.”
Millstone Township Attorney Duane Davison said landowners have to fill out an application to have their properties considered for preservation. Once an application is submitted, the township’s Open Space and Farmland Preservation Council ranks that property on its list of properties to be preserved. When the township considers a property a preservation priority, it goes through a funding mechanism, which requires applications being submitted to the county and the state, according to Davison.
According to the Cotters, their preservation application was filed several years ago but could not be considered complete until the no further action letter was received.
When asked if the state would consider preserving a property with a conditional no further action letter, Davison said the state cannot consider a property that the township has not yet considered. He said the township engineer would have to review the property and township officials would have to make the determination. He said all property owners hoping for preservation have a bigger issue to face these days.
“My understanding is that there is no funding for preservation in this round,” he said. “I’m not exactly certain when one round begins and ends, but I know it won’t be until spring before the next round comes and it’s iffy whether funding will be approved by the state to further preservation efforts. The state is in a financial crunch and the bottom line is there are no funds.”
Knowing that the township does not currently have the means of preserving their property, the Cotter family has reached out to various other organizations to seek out preservation funds. Frank Cotter said he spoke with the Monmouth Conservation Foundation, the Delaware and Raritan Greenway Group, Monmouth County, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and nonprofit land trusts to find other means of preserving the farm. However, he said many of these organizations depend on funding from the Garden State Preservation Trust, which due to a constitutional amendment in 1998, will no longer be funded after this year.
“Trenton is not doing anything to change that in spite of the fact that New Jersey residents have voted over the years to keep preservation going,” Frank Cotter said. “It’s becoming a very empty pot right now.”
Having to make a decision about the fate of their property is imminent as both Betsy and Frank are mortgage bankers affected by the current economic climate and housing crisis.
“Because of our dire business circumstances, money ran out,” Betsy Cotter said. “The bank wants their money back.”
Unsuccessful in locating preservation funding, the Cotters are now grappling with the decision of putting part or all of their property up for sale. They are simultaneously having concept plans for subdivision drawn up.
“We’re willing to subdivide for homes, but we are trying not to have it chopped up into 10-acre farmettes and made into more housing in Millstone,” Betsy Cotter said. “It’s our desire to keep it one parcel. We’re looking into selling the developer’s rights or finding someone to partner with us. We also have an idea of making the farm into upscale show grounds, but that takes money and time.”
Betsy Cotter said the family is moving in five different directions with the property at the same time because its running out of time and money. She said subdivision is “180 degrees away from our interests, but we have to preserve what we’ve invested over the last eight years, which is our entire life.”
Frank Cotter said the property is located in the township’s Rural Preservation zone. He said the family is trying to create a concept plan in accordance with what the township would want on such property.
“We would like to make this a premier horse community, if the township is willing to do that,” Frank Cotter said.
The Cotters remain uncertain as to the maximum number of lots the property would yield due to wetlands and other considerations. They said the land may generate between eight and 12 lots, but reiterated that the estimate is a best guess at this time.
“We think it would be far better staying the way it is,” Frank Cotter said.
He said plans for the property are likely to solidify in the next 10 days.
Frank Cotter said despite the uncertainty regarding the farm’s fate, the real victory has been cleaning up what was once considered a “black eye on Millstone” and getting the no further action letter from the state.
“That’s now a reality, but the length of time it took us to do that is what precluded us from preserving the farm and that’s why we’re now looking at subdividing or selling it,” he said.
Betsy Cotter said, “We’ve just about exhausted every means possible [for preservation], but we’re still thinking. Any option that is not a subdivision option, we’ll take.”