Lawsuit challenges Suffolk farmland legislation

An open space advocacy group has filed suit against the Suffolk legislature over a law that it says violates the purpose of the county's farmland preservation program.

The Long Island Pine Barrens Society's lawsuit challenges a recent overhaul of the program that spells out how and when greenhouses and other buildings can be erected on land where the county owns development rights.

The suit in state Supreme Court in Riverhead says that provision, passed in September, is a misuse of public money because it allows farmers paid not to develop their land to build on it anyway. The suit, served last week, also named the Long Island Farm Bureau and the county's farmland committee.

"If you're not planting anything in the ground, then it's not agriculture as we see it," said Richard Amper, the society's executive director. "We voted for this and coughed up our money so the land wouldn't be developed, and then there is a tasting room over here, and a catering hall, and a farm stand."

The bill said buildings may only cover 10 to 15 percent of land where development rights have been sold to the county. Up to 25 percent may be built on in special cases of hardship to be ruled on by the 19-member farmland committee. "All proposed development must be for the express purpose of supporting agricultural production," the bill said.

The Pine Barrens Society's lawsuit asks the court to vacate the measure and stop the use of taxpayer dollars to preserve farmland until it is rewritten.

Suffolk County Attorney Christine Malafi said in a statement last night that the lawsuit "lacks all merit," adding, "the legislation is completely valid."

The dispute turns in part on whether Suffolk's farmland preservation program - the first in the nation - was intended to preserve local agricultural activity or maintain the traditional row crop farms that have long characterized the East End.

As Long Island's potato fields give way to vineyards and nurseries, more farmers are turning to high value horticulture crops, some grown in greenhouses, said Joseph Gergela, of the Long Island Farm bureau.

"It's never been an open space program, it's a working lands program," he said, adding that greenhouses only make up about 1 percent of the land to which Suffolk owns development rights.