Differences over farming in residential districts; Sullivan ag board recommends against including Liberty farms

Posted 9/30/09

There was a public hearing at the government center on June 16 regarding the addition of new farming operations into Agricultural District Four in Sullivan County. Inclusion in the ag districts gives …

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Differences over farming in residential districts; Sullivan ag board recommends against including Liberty farms

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There was a public hearing at the government center on June 16 regarding the addition of new farming operations into Agricultural District Four in Sullivan County. Inclusion in the ag districts gives farmers certain protections should towns attempt to diminish or halt farming operations through zoning.

Robert Kaplan, chair of the Sullivan County Farmland Protection Board, told the legislature there were five requests for inclusion into the ag district that his board recommends the legislature approves this year: two in Town of Thompson, two in Town of Fallsburg, one in Town of Mamakating. He said there were four requests that his board recommends the county reject: two in Town of Liberty and two in the Town of Mamakating.

Kaplan said those operations were not recommended either because farming the particular parcels in question were not in accordance with town zoning, or there was not a sufficient commitment to farming from the owners at this time. Kaplan later specified that the board recommend against the Liberty properties because the parcels were located in residential districts where farming is not a permitted use.

John Wombacher, who recently purchased a 14-acre parcel next to his home in Liberty, said the parcel consists of orchards, a barn, a pond and a lot of space to grow crops. He said the property abuts Walnut Mountain Park, which is preserved as open space, as he intends to do with his land. He quoted the Sullivan County Farmland Protection Plan, adopted in 2013, saying, “Promoting agriculture entrepreneurs and helping new farm and farm expansions, are central concepts” of the plan. He also said the Town of Liberty Comprehensive Plan has as one of its goals, “to sustain, promote and support active agricultural and forest land.” He also cited the town code, which includes a right-to-farm law.

Sean Zigmund who owns Root 'N Roost Farm in White Sulphur Springs, spoke in support of the two Liberty operations. He said, “Farms can be had on rooftops in urban areas, farms can be had up the side of walls of schools if need be. We can grow crops, we can grow animals, we can create food in many, many different places.” Zigmund also held up a map of White Sulphur Springs, which is in the Town of Liberty, and said that town officials are in the process of perhaps changing the zoning of various parcels from agricultural conservation to residential development. He said, “Yet the comp plan, the ag plan and the (right-to-farm law) all say we should be increasing farming.”

Eugene Thalmann and LeeAnna Maniace, who own two parcels that total about 12 acres, also took to the podium. Thalmann said the property has about seven acres of blueberries and hundreds of feet of grapes. He too cited Liberty’s right-to-farm law and the other documents as supporting his right to commercially farm the property.

Kaplan then returned to the podium again to explain that the only reason the two Liberty properties were not recommended for inclusion into the ag district was because they are zoned residential and his board “will not force agriculture on a town.”

That prompted Zigmund to go to the podium again to say the town board passed the right-to-farm law, “to give the residents of the town in any zone, in any district the right to farm.”

The county legislature did not make a decision on which properties to include in the ag district, which will be done at a later date.

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