Farmland Purchased For Preservation, Not Privacy

Madonna, the pop star known as the Material Girl for her 1985 hit, is becoming Exhibit A in the case for better protection of farmland. According to a tabloid story, she plans a tree nursery next to her Bridgehampton house on land whose development rights were purchased by the Town of Southampton for $10 million a few years ago. Madonna, who now owns the 24-acre property absent the ability to build on much of it, pays a pittance in property taxes because of its agricultural designation. It appears now that she is planting various evergreens more as a private buffer than as a valid commercial activity. She is hardly alone in seeking to use publicly preserved land for what appears to be a personal purpose.

For years, Southampton and East Hampton Towns, along with help from Suffolk County and the State of New York, crafted deals intended to keep the land in farming. Unfortunately, it hasn’t always worked out that way. Advocates, such as the Peconic Land Trust, have begun to push to reopen negotiations with the underlying property owners. One approach would be to offer additional money to assure that acreage is used only for crops. This would mean no more farmland turned into lawns, horse riding facilities, or tree-filled privacy screens. It’s a good idea and overdue.

At the outset of the development rights movement in the 1970s, no one anticipated the stratospheric climb in South Fork real estate values. The programs were believed to be a sure way to keep land in true food production. Particularly in eastern Southampton Town, dozens, if not hundreds of acres of land rights bought by local and state taxpayers have been turned instead into de facto private estates. It is a travesty and a failure, and there appears little remedy given the broad language used in many of the purchase agreements.

There is considerable irony that at a time when local agriculture is on an upswing in numbers of farmers as well as the food-to-table movement so much land, thought to be saved for a precise purpose, is unavailable for tilling. Any new rights acquisitions must be framed in a way to assure crop production. And where there is willingness among property owners, new deals should be struck. As for Madonna and her tree farm, we are not holding out much hope.