AgWeb: For three decades, Andy Henry has declined $20-30 million offers for his 21-acre, 175-year-old farm. Ironically, local government is using his perseverance to take the entire property via eminent domain and replace pasture with affordable housing.
Grass for concrete? Legacy surrendered? No deal, Henry says. Period. Full stop.
On South River Road, in Middlesex County, N.J., warehouses and industrial buildings have replaced the once abundant farms of yesteryear—except a lone holdout.
“My family sacrificed on this land for 175 years,” Henry adds. “All the other farms disappeared. We did not. We will not.” MORE
Out and out theft.
Kelo v New London was an abomination.
Turn it into a solar farm and accuse the city of being anti- green.
Contact Trump and have him declare it a “National Historical Site”.
Tell the City wankers to bugger off.
Our forefathers would simply have “eliminated” the government officials.
Trade the NJ farm for land of equivalent value in America.
“Affordable” Housing is code for pushing the Democrat shithole pathologies out into suburban and rural areas by infiltrating a critical mass in concentrated populations of the bastard’s destabilizing elements into stable communities. Generally, the Goddamned things are owned by development interests that provide sweetheart “investment opportunities” to local, state and regional elected and appointed Democrat officials, their family and business associated.
You can tell if you and I are footing the bill for rent by looking at the square footage of each room and comparing it to the minimum size for Section 8 and other programs set up to reward Democrat voting freeloaders with. If the rooms just clear the bar size wise, the insta slum shithole collection of rabbit hutches is designed for exactly that.
https://youtu.be/sutx_6oHRQA?si=535D2ajTMvRdYs8G
Nine miles of two-strand topped with barbed wire
laid by the father for the son.
Good shelter down there on the valley floor,
down by where the sweet stream run.
Now they might give me compensation…
That’s not what I’m chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday.
Now all I have got is a cheque and a pickup truck.
I left my farm on the freeway.
They’re busy building airports on the south side…
Silicon chip factory on the east.
And the big road’s pushing through along the valley floor.
Hot machine pouring six lanes at the very least.
Now, they say they gave me compensation…
That’s not what I’m chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday.
Now all I have left is a broken-down pickup truck.
Looks like my farm is a freeway.
They forgot they told us what this old land was for.
Grow two tons the acre, boy, between the stones.
This was no Southfork, it was no Ponderosa.
But it was the place that I called home.
They say they gave me compensation…
That’s not what I’m chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday.
And what do I want with a million dollars and a pickup truck?
When I left my farm under the freeway.
They are going to replace a home for sheep and horses with a home for slugs and maggots
Nourish the Tree of Liberty.
If the city DOES manage to prevail after all the struggle, then I say POISON THE LAND as you are being forced to walk away. Fifty five gallon drums of the most toxic substances you can think of, dumped, sprayed, spread and soaked over everything.
Make the city earn the land by being as equally forced to decontaminate the land, as they used force to get you off of that same land.
Oh, and be sure to change your name as you disappear.
I saw a post about a new ‘affordable housing’ project in Santa Monica. Like they need more – but the state is mandating it, and the city government is now 100% pro-developer.
The new project would cost $1 MILLION per unit. Not including the land. For 1-2 bedroom basic apartment units. It is subsidized by government coffers (i.e. OUR money). So the developer makes his (huge) profit immediately… and it doesn’t matter that the units aren’t even occupied.
Remind me again – who voted these criminals into power?
Yeah, Kelo v. New London– Why buy the land when you can just buy a few politicians?
NEW JOYZZEE IS A SHIT HOLE !
This is a 21 acre agricultural area in the midst of an industrial and warehouse site. The township is obligated by New Jersey law to build 265 units of affordable housing somewhere, and given that “affordable housing” is generally code for “eventual shithole,” my guess is that the township wants to put the legally mandated affordable housing in the least obtrusive place it can and not near any desireable residential neighborhood. In Chicago, St. Louis and New York, affordable housing (e.g. projects) have led to the ruin of many neighborhoods.
At least one of the owners doesn’t live there anymore, and I’m not sure about the other owner. Emminent domain has been around for a long time, and at least in this case I don’t think the purpose here is necessarily to line the pockets of real estate developers – although government crony developers will undoubtably make a buck building affordable housing – but instead to stick something the township doesn’t necessarily want somewhere out of the way. Let’s face it – most people do not want to live in housing in the middle of an industrial district so the target market is folks who can’t afford to live anywhere else.
Land use, which includes zoning, variances, and condemnation, is a complicated theoretical and practical issue. On one hand, as locales grow and change, some governmental involvement in land use is inevitable; for example, large cities use condemnation to build or expand necessary transportation facilities such as freeways, interstates, secondary roads and rail systems necessary to serve the population. On the other hand, governmental involvement in land use is also subject to abuse – such abuse was and probably still is rampant in California.
I am not completely unsympathetic to the township in this instance. However, I think that this is an issue that will resolve itself eventually; at some point the heirs of the current owners will not feel the same attachment to the land and may likely be willing to sell. The situs of this 21 acre farm is probably not a place I would want to live, and at some point the owners may want to move on.