Jones Farms, Homestead Acres, PDR
Thomas Harbinson
Greetings All,
Just to inform you that the BOA had a special meeting last night in which values are now public knowledge regarding the purchase of development rights for the Jones Family Farms, Homestead Acres. The purchase agreement between the City and the Jones Family may yet have some fine tuning, but the public details:
Apx.132 acres will be protected forever from development to remain as farmland for a cost to the City of Shelton of $31,893 per acre, or a total of $4,209,876
The amount of this outlined expenditure is in excess of the amount the Board of Alderman is authorized to appropriate in a fiscal year. Thus it requires a referendum to be given that authority. This question had to be acted on promptly to be within legal deadlines for being placed on the ballot of the regular election in November. The BOA had a special meeting on TueAug29 and unanimously voted to place on the TueNov7 ballot (and this is my paraphrase rather than the legalese) a question asking approval for the resolution to appropriate $4,300,000 for the acquisition of the conservation easement of apx. 130 acres of the Jones Family Farm for preservation in perpetuity as farmland and authorizing the issue of $4,300,000 in bonds to meet said appropriation.
I expect request for comment from media, and at that point will publish my response in my blog. I'll notify you when I do that with a hyperlink so you can view those details online. Till then, thanks to all for helping get it this far.
Thomas Harbinson - Co-Chair
Conservation Commission
Tel:203.736.9249 ext.11 Fax:203.732.5780