The passion behind the yellow and black Save Wagner Farm signs has not faded. Through word-of-mouth, concerned Warren Township residents have raised more than $12K for the legal fight to save the farmland. Ten acres in question were purchased many years ago by the town to be preserved. Those acres are now under threat of development.
Conservation Warren (www.conservationwarren.org), a grassroots organization, has been formed to preserve and protect Warren Township's designated open space, some of which is threatened by development.
Area residents remember when Wagner Farm was a working farm. The Wagner’s sold the tract to Warren Township twenty years ago. It is now a beautiful open vista, including fields, forest, and wetlands draining to the Passaic River. It is a pristine, ecologically sensitive habitat, home to birds, mammals, and reptiles, including threatened species.
Warren Township used public funds to purchase the land via resolution, indicating it would be used for “open space, conservation, active and passive public recreation and environmental protection.”
Many citizens were shocked when the Township Committee greenlighted a portion (ten acres) of the property to be leased to and developed by a builder. In public Planning Board hearings, residents raised repeated concerns about the unsuitability of the site. There is no sewer service. There is zero public water access. The builder's engineering plan requires 20K cubic yards of fill dirt for its proposed complex to be sited properly.
The complex will not only need those 1,250 truckloads of fill dirt, but also its own sewage treatment plant. The treated sewage water will discharge back into the aquifer used for neighboring families' drinking water. Several test wells raised concern there is insufficient water for the development.
Neighbors of the proposed development retained a lawyer, Bruce Afran, Esq. of Princeton, to fight the loss of this ecologically sensitive tract. A GoFundMe site Help George Vetter Save Wagner Farm, continues to accept donations to help support the legal fight. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-george-vetter-save-wagner-farm
"The battle to protect this land is far from over," said Afran, "and we believe we have a strong case."
Of the Township's approval to lease this land for dense housing, it was "a bit of a bait and switch," Afran said, "In 2001 the township allocated money to buy this land and it said in the resolution the land was to be used for the purpose of preservation, ecological protection, and open space and recreation.
"This is really consistent with the whole area in general which is a natural area. It is part of the county master plan, in fact, for preservation and this is what the public was told: that the property would be purchased for these purposes.
"We are running out of preserved areas," Afran said, "and we have to be very careful that those areas intended to be preserved are not used for development."
For more information about the importance of preserving open space, citizens are
invited to visit www.conservationwarren.org.
Donations to the GoFundMe to support legal costs can be made via https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-george-vetter-save-wagner-farm.
