UPPER FREEHOLD – A 43-acre tract the township purchased for recreational purposes two years ago will be farmed for at least another year.
At the June 5 Township Committee meeting, the governing body unanimously agreed to have Roger Gravatt continue to lease the property for farming for one year. The land was formerly owned by EllenMiscoski and is adjacent to the Cream Ridge Golf Club on Route 539.
Deputy Mayor Bob Faber, also a farmer, asked why the lease had not been put out to bid.
Township Attorney Granville Magee said 15 members of the Miscoski family, various lawyers, the deputy attorney general and two title companies, among others attended theMay 2006 closing on the property and at that time all agreed to allow Gravatt to continue farming the land.
Magee said the township paid to preserve Ellen Miscoski’s property and 2 percent of the Cream Ridge Golf Club. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) joined Upper Freehold in purchasing the golf course.
The DEP’s Green Acres local assistance program provided the township with a 50 percent matching grant to purchase the 43-acre farm field. The township received $1.1 million of the $1.75 million match at the closing. The balance of the DEP’s local assistance funding, which is $650,000, will be paid in installments over the next few years.
Magee said the land leased to Gravatt has been planted with alfalfa, which has a life expectancy of six to seven years.
Magee said the township passed a resolution in November 2006 agreeing to continue the lease from 2007 until now. The one-year lease costs $3,500, which amounts to a similar per-acre cost of leasing other township properties.
“It was most cost effective to renew the bid,” he said.
Magee said the contract is fair to all parties. He said no law has been violated in not putting the lease out to bid because statutes state that farmers cannot be pushed off a property when Green Acres or another agency acquires it.
When asked about developing the property for recreation, Committeeman Stanley Moslowski Jr. said the land would no longer be farmed when the township has the money to turn it into recreational fields.
Mayor Steve Alexander said the township is in a planning process for the use of the property, but its financial situation would ultimately dictate how the property would be used for recreation.
Alexander also noted that another township-owned recreational tract, the former Reed property on Route 526, has been cleared of any contamination so the township canmove forward with using it.