Warren County continues toward its long-term goals of investing in farmland and open space. According to the Department of Land Preservation, the County has permanently preserved more than 27,278 acres of farmland and acquired more than 2,365 acres of parkland.

Delivering his 2021 annual presentation to the Warren County Board of County Commissioners, Corey Tierney, Director of the Land Preservation Department, reported that the County preserved 12 farms totaling 856 acres and 4 open space properties totaling 49 acres last year.

“By preserving our farms, parks, and historic sites, we are investing in Warren County’s agricultural, recreational, and tourism industries. We can see returns on these investments as more people visit our parks and downtowns, local farms grow their operations, and families move to here from elsewhere. This is a wonderful place to live, work, and explore – and there’s real value in sustaining that,” explained County Commissioner Director Jason Sarnoski. 

Open Space and Parkland

The Warren County Board of Recreation Commissioners is responsible for recommending the acquisition of open space and coordinating the use and improvement of parkland. Guided by the County Open Space Plan and Morris Canal 25-Year Action Plan, they have focused on acquiring key tracts of land along the Morris Canal Greenway, as well as expanding existing natural resource areas. Among other things, the county looks for unique features and sites of interests that are near population centers and accessible to residents.

“Warren County’s greatest assets are our forests, meadows, streams and lakes. Preserving these resources have been a top priority for the past decade and will continue to be so into the future,” County Commissioner James Kern said. “By partnering with our municipalities, nonprofits and other local groups, we will continue to protect the rural nature and beauty of this county,” Kern added.

Explaining that the county is investigating and negotiating over a dozen other properties, but that it is very selective when it comes to buying property, Tierney added, “We examine whether a property is consistent with our plans, whether it’s ecologically or historically important, whether it’s suitable for recreation, and whether it’s accessible to residents.” Using these selective guidelines, since 2011 the County has acquired 27 properties, adding 647 acres of land to the county’s park system.

For example, in 2015 the County acquired the 15-acre Svenningsen property, which enabled the completion of a long-desired loop trail around White Lake in Hardwick. In 2016, the County acquired the 20-acre Terhune property in Washington which enabled the completion of a long-sought connection across Oxford Mountain for the Warren Highlands Trail. That same year, the County also acquired the 65-acre O’Dowd property completing a long-anticipated Morris Canal Trail connection between Bread Lock Park in Franklin and Port Warren Park in Greenwich. Most recently, in order to connect the Morris Canal Greenway trail on Lock Street in Phillipsburg, the County purchased the small, but very significant Dias property, on either side of which the County already held property interests. 

“By carefully targeting which parcels to acquire, we have been able to maximize the public benefit while limiting the County’s expense – getting more bang for the buck, so to speak,” explained Tierney.   

Thanks to these efforts, the County now manages more than 2,365 acres of parkland, which consists of three natural resource areas and six parks along the Morris Canal. These include the White Lake, Marble Hill and Oxford Natural Resource Areas, as well as canal sites such as the Port Warren, Bread Lock, Port Murray, and Mount Rascal parks. More information about these parks is available at www.warrenparks.com.

“Even with all of these great sites, county open space and parkland only accounts for about 1 percent of all land in Warren County,” Tierney noted, “but we are also fortunate to have so many federal, state, and municipal parks here for our residents to explore.”

Recognizing the importance of connecting these lands together, the County installed the Waterloo Valley Trail Bridge, which was selected from among 50 nominations statewide to receive a 2021 Thomas Petri Recreational Trails Program Achievement Award given by the Coalition for Recreational Trails.

In addition to acquiring key properties, in recent years the County also has overseen substantial improvements to its parkland and related structures, as well as coordinated the increasing maintenance of these areas. For example, in order to accommodate increased visitation to White Lake, the County expanded both the main and secondary parking areas, and also installed a new floating dock at White Lake for use by visitors fishing and paddling.

“Over the past 10 years, not only have we seen record visitation levels at White Lake, but many of our other parks have also seen an increase in visitation as interest in the Morris Canal Greenway has spread across the state,” Tierney said. “Fortunately we have been able to partner with the New Jersey Youth Corps and Warren County Parks Foundation volunteers to help maintain these areas.” 

According to Tierney, open space preservation is a good investment because it’s important for environmental, health, and economic reasons. “Not only does it help strengthen the resiliency of the ecosystem,” Tierney explained, “but studies show that access to parks can help improve people’s health, spur commerce, and even increase nearby property values. These efforts continue to enjoy the public’s support because they improve our residents’ quality of life.”

Farmland Preservation

The Farmland Preservation Program also continues to be very successful. Statewide, Warren County ranks third in number of farms preserved and fourth in total farmland acreage preserved. While these farms remain in private ownership, a perpetual development easement is placed on the property which restricts it to agricultural use only.

“Preserving these 12 farms last year cost the County about $1.6 million – which is only about 42 percent of the total $3.85 million cost. So for every $1 we spent on farmland preservation this year, we received $2.40 towards these projects as a match,” Tierney remarked. “The State, municipalities, and nonprofits have been great partners in helping to fund these efforts and this has helped the county leverage its funds over the years to preserve even more land,” he added.

Since 2011, the County has preserved 110 farms comprising 7,297 acres at a total cost of about $36 million, of which the County paid about $10.4 million – or just under 30 percent. Although the county has now preserved more than 27,000 acres of farmland, Tierney cautioned, “Some people hear that big number and think we’ve done enough, but that’s only about 38 percent of the county’s 72,000 acres of farmland and less than 12 percent of the 232,000 acres in Warren County. With increasing development pressure here, we are continuing to pursue farmland preservation as aggressively as we can.” The Warren County Agricultural Development Board is currently updating its Farmland Preservation Target List with the assistance of the Land Conservancy of New Jersey.

“In Warren County, agriculture isn’t just a way of life – it’s over a $90 million a year industry,” Tierney continued. “It supports many ancillary businesses while requiring very little in the way of municipal services. Not only are we protecting productive soils for future generations, but farmers often reinvest the proceeds from preservation back into their operations to buy equipment, supplies and even more land. This helps keep agriculture viable.”

The County is currently processing 35 farmland preservation applications totaling 2,739 acres. It expects to permanently preserve 12 of those farms totaling another 1,000 acres in 2022.

“The amount of effort and detail that went into the Land Preservation Department’s 2021 Annual report is a true reflection of the enormous amount of effort and detail that goes into the day to day operations of the department. The successes of this department are tremendous and are a huge part of how we are able to continuously preserve our way of life in Warren County. Thank you to Corey and his staff, as well as our board members and volunteers who put their hearts and souls into these preservation and recreation programs,” offered County Commissioner Lori Ciesla

The full presentation is available on the County of Warren’s YouTube Channel at: https://youtu.be/l5limcKDa_c

PHOTO : A section of the Warren Highlands Trail through Warren County’s Marble Hill Natural Resource Area.