Upper Freehold - Princeton Nurseries to close after 94 Years - July 2007

Pending closure has some wondering what will become of large swath of land.

   UPPER FREEHOLD - According to Ivan Olinski, if you cut his veins he'll bleed Princeton Nurseries.
   For the past 12 years, he has been company president. Last week, the 62-year-old Upper Freehold resident announced that after 94 years, the nursery would be closing for business by 2010.
   At the company's June meeting, the board of directors voted to phase out all nursery operations over the next three years, according to a letter sent to other firms in the horticultural business.
   Phasing out, Mr. Olinski said, would entail selling the company's existing inventory and land. Phase two of phasing out - selling the land - is the part that he added would probably take the longest.
   At present, Princeton Nurseries takes up about 1,800 acres in Upper Freehold - 250 of which is considered preserved farmland as part of the Farmland Preservation Program. The 250 acres of preserved land, once known as the Collins farm, is located off Polhemustown Road behind the Cream Ridge Winery, said Mr. Olinski.
   The business also owns more than 700 acres in Chesterfield, Hamilton and North Hanover.
   The company is talking about preserving at least one-third of all of its property with the State Agricultural Development Committee and other state agencies. Mr. Olinski said he hopes to have the land appraisals completed by March 2008.
   The land on which Princeton Nurseries sits in Upper Freehold is zoned as agricultural/residential, and any business that purchases it would be subject to the zoning ordinances for agricultural land, according to Planning Board Secretary Susan Babbitt. If developed, the properties would fall subject to the township's 3-acre zoning with an option for bonus density if the development were clustered.
   However, she added that losing Princeton Nurseries would be a blow to the community because of how much land they're discussing.
   "The township realizes that over the years, we have more farmers who have been selling off tracts of land," she added. "The difference is when a farmer comes in and wants to do subdivisions, we're usually talking about a 100 acres at a clip. Here we're talking about an entity with over 1,800 acres. So, of course, the implications are a little more complex."
   Mr. Olinski said he would like the land to stay in the hands of a horticultural or agricultural industry. But he added that should another nursery open up, it would not bear the name Princeton Nurseries.
   "My first love has always been farming and for agriculture," he said. "I've been doing this for 50 years, and hopefully (the nursery) will remain farmland. On the other hand, as a business, we will have to look at what will be the most beneficial economic return to shareholders and to the owners of the company."
   Previously, some of the land - about 200 or 300 acres - could have been used for a village center in the township, he added. However, that plan was abandoned due to what Mr. Olinski said was an apparent lack of interest on the part of the Township Committee and Planning Board. He added that he originally thought the village center concept would have been a "great way to combine working along with the Planning Board for the center while maintaining an agricultural facility."
   The concept of a village center is not something the Planning Board has taken off its to-do list, according to Mayor Steve Fleischacker. He said the board is still talking about the number of units that would be appropriate for a village design and what that number would be based on. He added that it was his belief that many residents have reservations about a village center, believing it would lead to a situation that would cause property taxes to escalate. The mayor also encouraged Princeton Nurseries to attend Planning Board meetings to share their visions with the township.
   While Mr. Olinski has criticized the township officials for failing to attend the nursery's public meetings at varying times throughout the course of the year about its visions for the village center design, Mayor Fleischacker said a "hands-off" approach is an inaccurate description.
   "It is unfortunate our absence from these meetings was perceived as a 'hands-off' approach," he said in an e-mail on Monday. "Some of us, including myself, believed our roles would be successfully challenged and we would not be able to participate in the future Planning Board matters involving Princeton Nurseries if we had attended these meetings. We certainly did not intend to send the wrong message to them."
   In addition, he said that "if the majority of the township residents continue to not favor the village concept, an alternative for the land could be for the entire 1,500-acre non-preserved tract to be developed into luxury home sites." The issue would still be a question of how many homes would be on the site and how those homes could maintain a rural character.
   Approximately 1,250 acres could remain in nursery operations, farmland and preserved open space if the majority of township residents support the clustering of residential and commercial uses on an approximate 250-acre parcel served by a centralized, advanced wastewater treatment facility in a village setting, the mayor added. "At issue is how many units to build in a village setting, and does the community believe that number is too high a price to pay for maintaining agricultural and rural character," he said.
   He said the township will work with Princeton Nurseries to ease the transition.
   "Our goal is to lessen the short- and long-term impacts on our community," he said.