4 Red Hook farms join land preservation effort - Scenic Hudson secures agreements

RED HOOK - Four farms in the northern section of the Town of Red Hook will remain for generations to come, thanks to an agreement between Scenic Hudson and the town.

The 124-acre Agragate Farm, which produces cattle, lambs and hay mixtures of timothy grass and clover, the 24-acre Schachat property, a 43-acre tract and the 34-acre McGiver and Blum properties had their development rights purchased by Scenic Hudson and the town. The properties abut and are close to the Columbia County line, near the Clermont State Historic Site.

Scenic Hudson and Red Hook split the cost for the project. As part of the deal, the landowners give up their right to develop their property.

Seth McKee, Scenic Hudson's land conservation director, said the deal is part of a long-term goal announced last year of preserving 65,000 acres along the Hudson River that stretch from Westchester County to Albany.

"With the cost of fuel rising, having local land available for farming is important," McKee said. "It gives us a contiguous block of open space and 90 percent of those lands are prime farmland with soils of statewide importance. That means that they are highly rated for producing food."

The town paid Agragate Farm $19,000, McGiver and Blum $123,500, Blum $190,500 and Schachat $89,500 with Scenic Hudson paying an equal amount for each. Red Hook made the purchase through a $3.5 million farm preservation bond residents approved in 2003.

Mary Ann Johnson heads the town's Farmland Protection Committee, the group that decides which farms qualify to have their development rights purchased. She said Agragate farm was an essential piece because it is an active farm and it acts as the northern gateway into the town. The small farms, which act as a buffer to Agragate, are all start-up operations. While the smaller farms would have received little consideration if they had applied to the town's farmland protection program individually, they became more attractive when they were submitted as one application, Johnson said.

"If we're going to protect Agragate, then we might as well protect the surrounding farms as well," Johnson said.

McKee said officials were working on the project for about three years. One of the holds came from the fact Sue Crane, the town's supervisor and a former town councilwoman, is a minority owner of Agragate Farm. Although Crane recused herself from negotiations, McKee said officials still needed to obtain a waiver from the state Supreme Court that acknowledged that the deal isn't improper.