Market Gardens 'Not Inconsistent' with Master Plan

The Planning Board, by a vote of 7-2 with one abstention, has sent the market garden ordinance to the Chatham Township Committee without changes.

Board Attorney William Robertson will draft a letter saying the ordinance is "not inconsistent" with the township's Master Plan. Township Administrator Tom Ciccarone abstained from voting.

This brings the ordinance, which allows produce grown on applicable residential lots to be sold for profit, one step closer to final approval after more than a year of debate and controversy.

If the ordinance passes, property owners who wish to participate and apply to the Planning Board for permission to have market gardens as a conditional use. The , plants cultivated for replanting and business transactions taking place onsite. All gardens must be organic and meet certain county, state and federal organic requirements.

The board was of the ordinance in November, and it was not inconsistent with the Master Plan and sent it back to the township committee.

The committee and decided to ask the Planning Board to review it once more, since they made several changes to the version the board previously approved.

This time, Board Member Thomas Browne said he did not think the board should give their approval. He did not say he opposed the changes, but said he was unclear in his understanding of the ordinance when last it appeared before the board. 

After reviewing the matter in more detail, he found the ordinance to be "substantially inconsistent" with the Master Plan, which does not contain a section on agriculture. "It talks about [farming] in the context of open space," Browne said, specifying that the Master Plan prioritizes the "[preservation of] existing agricultural operations. ...

"This ordinance essentially introduces farming into a residential area. It can transform a residential area into a farming community," Browne said. "There's nothing in our Master Plan that says 'here's how you transfer a zone.'"

Frank J. Banisch III, the professional planner for the board, said Browne had a valid point. While the Master Plan does not explicitly mention agriculture, he said, "farming has been part of the cultural landscape for a long time, and the remnants of it are now what remain. The Master Plan makes references [to this past, and] I think the board could draw the conclusion that it's not inconsistent with the Master Plan."

Because there was no direction in the Master Plan that is directly on point, Banisch said, "I’dlike to say 'here’s the answer,' but I think the board has to deliberate on that."

Members of the public also voiced their approval and dissent of the ordinance before the board voted. Margy Capecelatro and Richard Erich Templin spoke against the ordinance.

Capecelatro said she was concerned about landscaping activities on market garden lands, especially composting. She also asked what protection there is if a property fails to meet organic qualifying standards. "If they don't get certified in three years, is the conditional use yanked?" she asked.

She also said landscapers who wish to avoid paying fines to drop off their yard cuttings at the Tanglewood Recycling Center, which provides composting services, could simply opt to till their composting back into the soil. The ordinance, as currently drafted, does not allow composting material to be stored.

Templin said, "We feel in Green Village [the township's] ordinances aren't being enforced." He distributed photographs of the two properties along Green Village Road whose owners wish to have a market garden, and cited a truck with a business logo on the side parked in the resident's yard.

Mayor Nicole Hagner said parking a vehicle, even if the vehicle is used for business purposes, is allowed on private property overnight. "The activities going on are not against the ordinances. The Planning Board should know that [Ciccarone] is monitoring that."

Templin said the market gardens would "[cause] harm to people, [to] the environment [and to] the value of the neighborhood." He referred to what he called "before and after" photographs of 461 Green Village Rd., dating, he said, from when former Mayor Abby Fair owned the property to after the Bucuks took over. "I don’t know how you argue with those pictures, but somehow I think you will," he said.

Daniel Miller, one of two Green Village residents who asked the township to consider allowing farming activities, spoke in favor of the ordinance, as did Daniel Somers of the Green Village portion of neighboring Harding Township.

Miller said most of the property is currently open space, "preserved by 'moi' at a high cost," and that it "could be used for other uses, but it's not what I would choose to do."

Somers said he was "baffled by the controversy" happening around the corner from his Spring Valley Road home in Harding Township. He said he and his wife both grew up on farms and maintained a farm now, in addition to his working as an attorney. 

"I can’t understand what the concern is. Yes, you are now more or less a residential commnunity, ... but the origins [of the town] are in farming," Somers said. "What’s being proposed here, I think, is common sense," and the board "should go out of your way to support farming and agricultural activities."

Ultimately only Browne and Jonathan Cohn voted against the motion to send a letter to the township committee saying the ordinance was "not inconsistent" with the Master Plan. 

The ordinance is up for second reading and final passage in April before the township committee.