Piscataway gets OK to condemn farmland

New Jersey Star-Ledger | December 3, 2002 | Patrick Jenkins

[Question_Assumptions]

Poor Helen. She swam with the sharks and got eaten.

Looking forward to shaking the dust of this town from my sandals!

Are you planning on leaving or is this wishful thinking? I find myself wondering if Rutgers students registered to vote in Piscataway would have any interest in the plight of the farm.

[Tamzee]

I used to live in Piscataway and am trying to remember where this farm is... any hint you can give me?

I lived at Pleasantview Gardens, oh, about 20 years ago :-) What's it look like now, BTW??

Thanks!

[Question_Assumptions]

It's the large blank square between 665, 609, and 529 south of 287. Note that Centennial Ave now connects to Hadley Road and the place marked "Seeley Ave" now includes a huge Walmart shopping center that was only recently built.

[Tamzee]

Oh, wow... thanks for the map! Now that you pointed out the location I can see what the uproar is all about :-( A developer would pounce on that in a heartbeat to put up an apartment complex.

Thanks again!

[sauropod]

No kidding. Same with his brother.

[Beck_isright]

" But the Halper's need to blame their fellow citizens for allowing their predicament."

You know, that's funny. It reminds me of a similar thought that the Jews had about blaming their fellow Germans when they allowed their predicament to occur. We're not heading down that road yet, but the sheeple are allowing more and more power to be acquired by the state and soon, very soon, it will all be over. This started with Bush 1, sped up under Klintoon, and now, will soon, be too powerful to overcome. God help this once great nation.

[Beck_isright]

It's interesting because this power of eminent domain is being widely abused in Florida. Now it's being used against farms which have existed for over 100 years in South Florida for "environmental" reasons. The reality is that because the citizens of our country have never fought hard for property rights since the Civil War, no one has seen a need to. Now it's too late. All it takes is one Dept. of the Interior flake alleging a rare cockroach lays it's eggs on your property, or a developer paying off a state politician then whammo. You've lost your property. As our nation continues down this road the capitalist system will collapse. The basic premise of a free nation using the capitalist system is the concept of "private property". Since only about 10% of us care about this issue, I can see a major change happening in my lifetime. That's a shame too, because soon, after the next major hurricane, I can see all of the private homes which were on the coastline of Florida decades before the mega condos and hotels were developed, being declared "environmentally sensitive zones" after they are destroyed. Then of course suddenly a developer will buy the property back from the state of Florida for a song and build an "environmentally friendly" resort on the same piece of land. Welcome to Amerika my friends.

[tcostell]

I can't imagine that the current Rutgers undergraduates are interested in supporting the private property rights of anyone. At least not after they get done having their heads filled with mush.

I'm a Rutgers graduate ('85, Economics) and the stories I could tell you ... well,... I guess they wouldn't really suprise anyone here.

[Beck_isright]

Remember, Willie Sutton would go to jail. CEO's and politicians get probation. Two sets of laws for two different economic castes. That's the way it will be. I gurantee you that you'll never see the day Ted Turner's ranch property in Montana will be acquired by the state. But your back yard or my beach home are fair game.

[gridlock]

$53,000 an acre is cheap for this part of the country. I live about 10 miles from Piscataway, and my land is assessed at $150,000 for a quarter acre. And the only way the assessment relates to market value is because the town uses really ridiculously high figures for construction costs. Actual market value is probably closer to $250,000.

A vacant quarter acre residential lot across town adjacent to the industrial quarter and backing up on an active freight line that carries municipal waste from NYC five hours a day sold recently $175,000. That's what land costs in NJ.

Using a more typical value of $150,000 per quarter acre lot, this farm should go for $30 million. That's what it is worth to a developer, so that is what the town should pay.

[Question_Assumptions]

I was a Rutgers undergrad, too (graduated in 89). The key would be to convince them that this is "big business" vs. "the environment" and open spaces. The harder part would be to convince them that it's the Democrats who are in the pockets of big buiness. I think they've drunk too much Democrat Kool Aid to wrap their little brains full of mush around the idea.

[LaserLock]

So how do we create an organized ground-swell to change this injustice and others around the country.

LaserLock

[Coleus]

When is your property not yours?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/915095/posts
http://www.msnbc.com/news/914260.asp?cp1=1

[fineoldethings]

Your question made me smile (ironically) and remember. I lived on Hanover St in Piscataway during my whole childhood. The apartment complex of Pleasantview Gardens was built on a farm!! The whole neighborhood was devastated when the farm was sold to "developers" and the neighborhood and traffic situation changed forever. Once the barns were torn down, the ponds filled in, the cornfields gone...it was never the same.

[Tamzee]

I think the entire state of NJ was built in that manner :-(

My husband grew up in Freehold and there were several acres behind his road of undeveloped land - fields and wooded area. One day some construction crews showed up and built an apartment complex there almost the size of Pleasantview Gardens... big, sprawling, and yes, ugly.

We just moved back to the Tri-State area now after having lived in New Hampshire recently. Our house there was part of a pretty community association, nice little houses with a tiny private lake. After we bought the house we found out that the lake and homes were built on what was once a mink farm. The area residents were NOT sad to see that go, however, the minks had quite a reputation for being vicious little neighbors ;-)