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Suffolk
Executive Steve Levy Announces Preservation of 57-Acre Farm in Town of Riverhead
County
Will
Purchase Development Rights to Harriman Estates Nursery Property
Hauppauge
, NY –
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy today announced the approval of legislation to preserve the 57-acre Harriman Estates Nursery Property in the town of Riverhead.
Located on Main Road in Aquebogue between Edgar Avenue and Union Avenue, the 56.94-acre property is primarily used to cultivate nursery stock.
To ensure its continued agricultural use, Levy introduced legislation to acquire the development rights to the farm, which was passed today by the County Legislature.
Financed through the new Suffolk County Drinking Water Protection Plan, the farmland development rights will be purchased at an agreed priced of $170,000 per acre, for a total cost to the county of $9.67 million. As an added bonus, the Harriman farm lies contiguous to 26 acres of farmland whose development rights were also recently purchased by the county, and across the street from 50 acres of county-protected farmland.
“By committing to keeping their property as farmland, the owners of this property are preserving open space from development and preserving the high quality of our agricultural industry,” Levy said. “Suffolk County has excellent soil and a great climate for horticulture, which has led to our being named the number one agricultural county in New York State in terms of the dollar value of goods sold, beating out our upstate counterparts who have more farm and open space than we do.”
Suffolk County currently holds the development rights to over 6,000 acres of farmland in the Town of Riverhead, making it the overwhelming majority of the roughly 10,000 total acres of farmland owned by Suffolk across the county.
Since Levy’s inauguration in 2004, when he revitalized a nearly dormant and scandal-ridden open space program, Suffolk has preserved nearly 6,000 acres – which is six and one-half times the size of New York’s Central Park – including 70 farms. The program continues to aggressively pursue the purchase of environmentally significant parcels and farmlands.
Upon taking office in 2004, Levy implemented a number of measures to revitalize and reinvigorate the county’s open space and water protection programs, including use of a Master List of properties to speed up the planning and appraisal processes and to take the politics out of land acquisition; streamlining the contract process; increasing the number of attorneys in the Division of Real Estate for closings; implementing a $75 million Save Open Spaces (SOS) Bond Act; and expanding the number of acquisitions done with other municipalities, environmental agencies or private land trusts.
In 2006, Levy created a $50 million Environmental Legacy Fund in the county’s capital budget, which is earmarked for acquisitions in which other municipalities or private interests apply matching funds. The Legacy Fund was recognized in 2008 by the National Association of Counties and the National Land Trust with a County Leadership in Conservation Award, and Levy recently received a Leadership Award from the Long Island Farm Bureau.
Levy also led the charge in extending the quarter-cent sales tax through 2030 to be used exclusively for environmental preservation.
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