County Exec Announces Plan To Preserve 50+ Acres Of Riverhead Farmland

RIVERHEAD, NY — Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine and local officials joined members of Long Island’s farming community in Riverhead Wednesday to announce the county’s imminent purchase of development rights for more than 50 acres of farmland.

The county, Romaine said, is in contract to acquire a 33-acre property that shares a border with previously preserved farmland to the south of Sound Avenue, completing a large segment of farmland preservation.

Funding for the project is made available by the administration’s $15 million commitment to preserve farmland funded through the capital budget, he said.

"These are the farmers of Riverhead," Romaine said. "These are the farmers of the East End. There are the people that are really helping us."

Almost 6 percent of Suffolk County is in farmland, Romaine said. "And it's our goal to make sure that that continues."

When he served as Suffolk County legislator from 2006 to 2012 and represented the area, Romaine said he worked to preserve more farmland and open space. "That was important, to preserve our past, to make sure that farming remains active," he said.

The gathering, hosted by the Garden of Eve in Riverhead, marked the 50th anniversary of Suffolk County’s Farmland Development Rights program, which began in 1974 under then-County Executive John Klein. "He had the wisdom and the foresight to realize that developers were buying our farmland and if they continued, we would not have farming," Romaine said.

Klein set in place the program that allowed the county to purchase development rights from farmers, allowing them to continue to own their farms, but to ensure that the land would stay in farming.

The 33-acre parcel being purchased, Romaine said, is important. "It reminds us that we are going to do all we can to make sure farming stays a vital industry," he said. "You need a concentration of farms to stay active."

Former Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski, who is now Southold town supervisor and also a longtime farmer, said he'd also worked to secure the development rights for the 33-acre parcel while he was serving the county. "That parcel is a really good, because they are working on building a big block of preserved farmland. That’s a great thing that the county is doing."

The bottom line, Romaine said, is that the county needs to preserve its farms — and also work with school districts to provide nutritious, natural options rather than processed foods.

Suffolk County Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey, who represents western Suffolk, said he understands the importance of preserving farmland with the purchase of development rights. "It's a formula that's worked for 50 years," he said.

Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard said the $15 million would go "a long, long way. Riverhead still has 7000 acres that can be preserved, and we are chipping away at it all the time with the Community Preservation Fund. We have preserved more land in Riverhead than all the East End towns combined. That's a great thing. The more we can save, the more we can preserve, the more we can keep the farmers in business. We have to do everything we can do to make that happen. This is a great day in Riverhead."

Suffolk County Legislator Catherine Stark added: "Our farming program is historic, one of the first in the nation. It was replicated across the country, It's changed as farming had changed, but we continue preserving farms."

And, she said; "We are now competing with developers. Down the road it's very important to have contiguous zones that create a whole farming zone. Farmers support each other, share equipment — having this contiguous zone is very important." To farmers, she said: "Come on in. We're happy to buy your development rights."

Rob Carpenter, director of the Long Island Farm Bureau, also lauded the county's efforts. "Going forward in the future, we don't know where our food is going to come from. Every acre of land we can preserve today guarantees that in the future, we'll have access to a healthy local food supply to help feed the 3 million people in Nassau and Suffolk Counties that rely on us to give them food every day — so they are able to have good sustenance. We hope we can continue to preserve the next 10,000 acres to get the critical mass that's so important to us."