Sunday, 15 June 2025

OUTRAGEOUS: Town Moves To Seize 175-Year-Old Family Farm To Build Affordable Housing Units

100 Percent Fed Up
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A New Jersey town has moved to seize a 21-acre farm belonging to the same family for 175 years.

Chris Henry pleaded with the Cranbury Township Committee to reconsider seizing the farm that’s remained in the family since 1850.

Henry and his brother, Andy, have declined lucrative offers for decades, ranging from $20-30 million, to preserve their family’s historic property.

However, the town now looks to take the land via eminent domain.

Cranbury officials intend to transform the property into affordable housing units.

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Per AgWeb:

On South River Road, in Middlesex County, N.J., warehouses and industrial buildings have replaced the once abundant farms of yesteryear—except a lone holdout.

“My family sacrificed on this land for 175 years,” Henry adds. “All the other farms disappeared. We did not. We will not.”

In 1850, Joseph McGill—Andy Henry’s maternal great-grandfather—bought 21 acres of farmland in Cranbury, tucked almost dead-center between New York City and Philadelphia.

McGill broke ground and began growing crops immediately, alongside construction of a farmhouse. In 1879, the home burned. McGill rebuilt in 1880. One crisis of many endured.

“They survived hardship after hardship,” Henry says. “In 1936, my grandfather died, leaving my grandmother and mother to run the farm. It was struggle after struggle, but they held on to the land, and again survived, leaving something for the next generation.”

Henry, alongside his brother, Christopher, grew up on the family farm and watched the surrounding landscape dramatically change form. In 1952, the New Jersey Turnpike was laid down a stone’s throw from their property, and in 1972, an adjacent Turnpike exit was constructed, opening the floodgates on development.

In rapid succession, domino-style, the surrounding farms were sold. Warehouses and distributorships birthed metal and concrete; land values skyrocketed; and the industrial world ringed the Henry operation. Through it all, the family’s 21 acres remained intact as a working farm.

WATCH:

NJ.com reports:

Since taking full ownership of the farm over a decade ago, the brothers said they have invested more than $200,000 to maintain it. Though the Henry brothers now live in New Mexico, they visit regularly to check on the property, which is run by a local tenant who raises sheep and cattle.

Cranbury officials are moving forward with plans to seize the 21-acre farm through eminent domain to make space for the construction of affordable housing. Town officials say they plan to pay the family a fair price for the land, even though the Henry brothers don’t want to sell.

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The brothers are making a final push to save the land.

“We’re asking that the township committee look at other alternatives that don’t require this blunt force method of eminent domain against a family that does not want to sell their property,” Chris Henry said.

The family’s plea comes as Cranbury races to meet a June 30 deadline to submit its affordable housing plan to the state. The township is required to build 265 affordable housing units over the next decade — part of a statewide mandate that has stirred controversy in some towns.

By 2035, municipalities across New Jersey must add or renovate more than 146,000 affordable units under quotas established by the state. The mandate stems from the Mount Laurel Doctrine, a series of New Jersey Supreme Court rulings that require towns to provide their fair share of affordable housing in the region.


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