This is a national trend. Yaro said a growing body of academic and professional research shows that leaving forests and farmland undeveloped is often the best strategy for keeping local property taxes down. Robert Wagner, a researcher with the American Farmland Trust in Northampton, Mass., said recent studies in 40 mostly rural towns and counties in 11 states indicates that farmland, even when assessed at low farmland rates, more than pays its way. The studies show that residential properties cost local governments an average of 17 percent more than they pay in taxes while farms and forests cost an average of 34 percent less to service than they pay in taxes. If it passes, he will target parcels ripe for development, such as the Zielinski Farm, not far from Route 18 near the busy junction of Cranbury and Dunham's corner roads, where several cows graze in a pasture.
People like to see it.
In the highly congested town of Edison, where voters last year narrowly defeated a proposod 1-cent tax hike to purchase open space, many residents seem ready to embrace an identical proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot. Edison is already built up and congested enough. There are more townhouses and condos going up all the time, and I'd rather see the open space we have left preserved. One reason counties and municipalities are creating open space funds is that the state's Green Acres program moves slowly. There are emergency situations where a piece of land is up for sale and we have to get it before a developer does.