UNION COUNTY FREEHOLDER BOARD
PRESERVES 23 ACRE SEVELL FARM
IN SCOTCH PLAINS

Trust Fund exceeds 10-year goal of preserving 100 acres
of Open Space in only three years
 

UNION COUNTY -- The Union County Board of Chosen Freeholders today announced the purchase of the 23-acre Sevell Farm and Ponderosa in Scotch Plains. The farmland will be preserved as open space for generations to come.

The property tract was the largest available farm in Union County, and it is one of the County’s last remaining farmsteads. The $10 million purchase is being paid for by the Union County Open Space, Recreation and Historic Preservation Trust Fund, approved overwhelmingly by taxpayers in November, 2000. The Trust Fund is financed by a 1.5-cent per $100 of assessed property value surtax.

“Most said it would take 10 years to preserve 100 acres of Open Space in Union County,” Mirabella said. “With the preservation of the Sevell Farm, I am pleased to announce that in 3 short years,  the Open Space Recreation and Historic Preservation Trust Fund has exceeded that goal with 104 acres saved. And we’ve only just begun.”

Freeholder Mirabella thanked the Sevell family---Norman “Dutch” Sevell and his wife, Marie, for deciding to have their farm preserved.

“This property could have very easily have been developed as it is in an outstanding location,” Mirabella said. “Now it can remain in its natural state. In a county where half a million people live in just 100 square miles, we all know that green space is at a premium.”

County Manager George W. Devanney thanked State Senator Joseph Suliga (D-22) for his work in putting the Sevell family in touch with the County and negotiating the transaction.

The Sevell family has maintained the farm on Cooper Road for the past 40 years. There are 18 cows, red barns full of hay, farming equipment, a windmill, a man-made pond, a Georgian Colonial with porches, an in-ground pool and tennis courts on the farm.

Under Mirabella’s leadership, the Freeholder Trust Fund Committee has been very aggressive in purchasing and preserving several properties this past year including the five-acre YMHA property in Union, the 13-acre Esposito Farm in Clark, and now the Sevell Farm.

Freeholder Chairwoman Deborah Scanlon, who declared 2003 as the “Year of the Family,” noted that the preservation of the Sevell Farm fits nicely into these plans.

“Families of Union County will be thrilled to come to a real farm,” Scanlon said. “They can see what life was like in a simpler time and learn a little bit about our past.”

By also funding park and recreation improvements like “Field of Dreams” and “Green the Streets,” the Union County Open Space, Scanlon said the Recreation and Historic Preservation Trust Fund is making the County—and towns such as Scotch Plains--an even more desirable place to raise a family.

Through “Field of Dreams,” nearly every municipality in Union County was awarded a grant to expand and/or create much needed playing fields. In the Scotch Plains/Fanwood area, the County will provide $1 million through the “Field of Dreams” program and additional Trust Fund monies to fund four new athletic fields, as well as improvements to three recreational facilities.