By: centraljersey.com
The D&R Greenway helped preserve the 57-acre Maple Lane Farm, located east of Route 206 in Hillsborough, the group announced this week.
The preservation was made possible by a friendship between property owner Madelyn Berger Belliveau and her friend, D&R Greenway Trustee Rosemary Blair. According to the D&R Greenway, Mrs. Blair contacted Bill Rawlyk, the Greenway’s director of land preservation, to see if the group could help the family protect the land.
"The majority of the property is agricultural land with hedgerows and forested buffer along Pikes Run," Mr. Rawlik said. He added that the land is known to be a habitat for threatened species, including bobolink and great blue heron, made the group feel the property’s preservation should be a high priority.
The Somerset County Farmland Preservation Program helped arrange the county’s purchase of an agricultural easement for $1,096,699, with grants from the state Agriculture Development Committee; a federal grant from the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program – administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service – that was contributed by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation; and county preservation funds.
D&R Greenway then purchased the now deed-restricted Maple Lane Farm, with help from a $199,500 Raritan Piedmont Wildlife Habitat Partnership grant from Conservation Resources Inc., a non-profit organization providing financial and technical services to the conservation community in New Jersey. Funding for the grant was provided to CRI by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Step three will be for D&R Greenway to showcase Maple Lane Farm as a model for the agricultural and conservation communities. The property will serve as a demonstration site showing how farmland and wildlife management can complement each other.
"The family of John Van Dyke and Blanche Mertz Berger are proud that Maple Lane Farm will remain undeveloped," Ms. Berger Belliveau said. "We would like to extend our thanks to Rosemary Blair and special thanks to Bill Rawlyk of D&R Greenway for making this preservation possible."
For more information about D&R Greenway Land Trust, visit www.drgreenway.org.

