By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — A proposal to develop a therapeutic horse-riding facility on preserved farmland has been challenged by residents and prompted a formal request by the Township Committee to delay a county review of the plan.
The objections have raised the issue of what is permitted to be built on farm property after the development rights have been purchased with public funds. The committee requested a one-month adjournment of the Somerset County Agriculture Development Board’s review of the site plan for the 112-acre preserved farmland, the so-called Gallup property, that is scheduled to be presented to the board on Monday.
The applicant, Jim Nawn of Princeton, said he and his wife Ann intend to use the property for therapeutic horse riding for children with disabilities, growing crops and breeding and raising horses.
The couple also plans to build a house in one of the sections of the two acres of wooded area reserved for nonagricultural uses in the property’s deed of easement.
The tract, which currently contains no buildings, is located on The Great Road, south of the intersection with Route 518 and north of Cherry Valley Road, across from Inverness Drive.
Of the 112 acres of the tract, about five to six acres would include buildings. The horse-riding facility aspect of the plan calls for a barn with 12 stalls, an approximately 17,000-square-foot indoor riding arena and a service building for both the riding facility and farm work.
The therapeutic riding facility would also include an outdoor riding area, which Mr. Nawn described as a fenced-in field, and an area large enough to fit 11 vehicles, with only the required handicapped parking spots to be covered with an impervious material. He said the property’s primary use will be agricultural.
Mr. Nawn is under contract with the property’s owners George H. Gallup Jr. and J.G. Laughlin and expects to close on the tract soon.
The state and the county worked with the Gallups to preserve the property through the state’s farmland preservation program in 1994, according to Lauren Wasilauski, the township’s open space coordinator. When a farmland is preserved under the state’s program, a deed of easement imposed on the property for the development rights. Since the county contributed to purchasing the development rights to the 112-acre tract, it holds the deed of easement over the property, which makes the county responsible for monitoring how it is used.
Both the state Agriculture Development Committee and the county Agriculture Development Board have decided the land uses being proposed by Mr. Nawn do not violate the deed of easement for the property.
After hearing challenges of these decisions from members of the public during the April 3 Township Committee meeting, the committee requested the adjournment of the project’s next review by the county to give the township time to conduct its own legal review.
During the meeting, the Township Committee requested that its attorney examine the deed of easement and the plan to determine whether or not the uses being proposed by Mr. Nawn are consistent with the deed of easement. The Township Committee also agreed it would seek the state attorney general’s legal review of the issue.
Tamara Lee, a municipal planner who was hired by a family living next to the property, claimed that Mr. Nawn’s plan violated the rules of the state’s farmland preservation program.
”This is attempting to unilaterally change the terms of a deed restriction,” Ms. Lee said, during the meeting. “If that’s allowed to happen, every piece of preserved land will be irrelevant. This has statewide implications.”
Susan Pizzi of Mountain View Road, the neighbor who hired Ms. Lee, said she feared the project would result in a loss of privacy for her and her family. Ms. Pizzi said she was also concerned about the uses that could happen on the property other than what Mr. Nawn was proposing.
”It’s our understanding that under farmland approval it’s almost anything goes,” Ms. Pizzi said. “There could be horse shows, even rodeos.”
Clem Fiori, chairman of the Montgomery Open Space Committee said he and his fellow committee members also had concerns about future uses of the site.
”The Open Space Committee reviewed your plan and I could say that we were truly conflicted,” Mr. Fiori said. “Aside from the scale of it our main concern is what could happen next.”
He added, “It seems like wow I think preservation in a lot of ways can become a moving target. We’re also concerned about the habitat. … I think what would please us would be some scaling down of just the size and the extent to which you alter the land.”
During the meeting, Mr. Nawn said many of the comments made by the public were out of context, claiming that some of the people who spoke had not looked at the property or thoroughly reviewed his plan and the deed of easement.
”We’ve taken great care in trying to preserve the character of the property,” Mr. Nawn said.
In a phone interview following the meeting, Mr. Nawn said the therapeutic riding program would be very small in nature and secondary to agricultural uses. He added that the program would only occur on weekdays and be used by about six to eight students in the course of a day, with each student only remaining on the premises for about 50 minutes.
Tara Kenyon, senior planner for the Somerset County Planning Board, said Wednesday that she just received the township’s request for an adjournment and has not yet decided how the county will respond.
