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R� l Page 2 NEW JERSEY farmland preservation report Many localities in fiscal `trouble zone' Continued from page I The state should "be strategic in preservation planning and land buying," the report states. Getting more strategic with preservation The state's farmland preservation program will soon be more strategic if the State Agriculture Development Committee adopts recommendations from a committee that has been reviewing the state program process, according to SADC executive director Susan Craft. Since becoming director last January, Craft said she has pursued a more strategic approach to statewide land protection. One of the biggest chal- lenges in farmland preservation in New Jersey is the size of farms coming into the program. The median size of farmland assessed parcels is just 25 acres. "It's very administratively intense," Craft said. "In the stateside part of the program we are being more proactive, setting county by county standards farmland preservation report is published monthly exceptforAugust &December by Bowers Publishing, Inc. 900 La Grange Road Street, Maryland 21154 Telephone: 410 692 -2708 Email: bowerspub @hotmail.com www.farmlandpreservationreport.com Deborah Bowers Editor &Publisher Tom Daniels Senior Contributing Editor Robert J. Heuer Contributing Editor CELEBRATING OUR 15TH YEAR! Subscription rate of $205 includes index & hotline services. ISSN: 1050 -6373. Copyright 02005 by Bowers Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form, or electronic' forwarding of this material requires permission from the publisher. October 2005 to pursue the bigger farms in each county." To do that, SADC is proposing to use GIS to "target large, contiguous, high - quality ground... I want to go into a county and say `if we could preserve 10 farms, which ones would they be ?' Then we would do solicitation through public meetings." An incentive grant program designed to encour- age localities to assemble clusters of applicant farms was established in 1999. The current proposal would use the same strategy when the state buys easements directly. Craft, formerly program administrator for Burlington County, said the state plan has had an impact on planning in every county, but many municipalities are taking state money to purchase easements without doing anything to protect that investment. "They are still chasing commercial ratables without knowing you have homes to go along with it. If the state is to be serious, you have to hit [municipalities] in the wallet... does the state plan need more teeth? Yes. Perhaps we need to get serious about carrots." Meanwhile, the purchase of development rights has preserved 139,000 acres in New Jersey, working with a $500 million commitment since 1998. But rising land values are taking a big bite out of that, Craft said. "There was an annual goal of 20,000 acres, but financially I don't think that's possible anymore." Small farm size is also a factor in that, she said. Under current regulations and policies, New Jersey will be the first state in the nation to reach build -out, according to the New Jersey Future report. The cost of living in New Jersey is among the nation's highest; sprawl has created skyrocketing land values and commutes that are long and getting longer, the study said. Commute times in the state have been ranked as the third longest in the nation. In addition, the cost of housing has created a class society of workers segregated by income and race, according to the group. Sprawl type growth is continuing to threaten towns with decline brought on by diminished