CAMBRIA, N.Y. (WKBW) — A Cambria town board meeting is set to vote on a change to the town’s definition of a ‘farm.’ The town says it’s to clear up confusion, but neighbors worry it takes away their status.
Tyler Booth and his sister, Charlotte Patterson, are proud, generational farmers in Cambria, carrying on the legacy of the Forsythe-Warren Tavern and farm. However, they currently live in worry.
“We’re one of the oldest, if not the oldest, farms in Niagara County,” Tyler said. “After Thursday, potentially Thursday night, we won’t be a farm anymore.”
What Tyler is referring to is a proposed change to town law that would increase the minimum acreage to be considered a farm from five acres up to seven.
“[Our farm], we are just over 5 acres,” Tyler said.
“If they chose to use the five acres as a hard definition, we lose all of the privileges of a farm,” Charlotte said.
Q: “What are those privileges that come with that title?”
Charlotte: “We may at some point need to put a roof on one of our buildings, and if I go to the building department, or any other board, to ask for a permit to fix that building, they may identify it as a nonconforming use, because then we aren’t a farm, and they may deny that permit.”
I asked Cambria Town Supervisor Jon MacSwan why make that change?
“Our local law doesn’t coincide with the state law, so what we decided to do was to go with the Agricultural and Markets State Law on classification of farms,” MacSwan said.
Section 301 of the NYS Agricultural and Markets Law says that for a piece of land to be considered farmland, it has to be at least seven acres.
MacSwan tells me they’re just matching the laws of the state and their neighboring towns.
Six other towns in Niagara County define farms as areas with a 7 or 10-acre minimum.
Only Wheatfield has a listed minimum at or below Cambria’s current law. Wheatfield’s minimum acreage is three.
Q: “Are any people who currently own farms going to be grandfathered into this?”
MacSwan: “All people are grandfathered in… It doesn’t change anything. If you have a farm that’s under the acreage, we don’t care; we’re not going around measuring acres. We’re not checking anything. It just has to do with classification.”
Tyler: “That sounds great, but they’d have to write that into law to grandfather us in.”
Charlotte: “They can say ‘grandfather’ all they want. There’s no clause that says ‘grandfather.’ But someday, if I wanted to give this farm to my children, the laws might protect us right now, these new laws [wouldn’t protect them].”
The law change will be voted on at Thursday’s Cambria town board meeting.
Tyler and Charlotte are encouraging all to attend.
“If it’s about getting in compliance with New York State laws, let’s talk about how we can get there without hurting our residents,” Charlotte said.
The town tells me they welcome residents to call them if they have questions.
