County Closes on Fresh Pond Farm Development Rights in Calverton

Suffolk County has bought the development rights to about 4.5 acres of Fresh Pond Farm, on the west side of Fresh Pond Avenue north of Middle Country Road in Calverton, County Executive Ed Romaine announced Thursday. The county paid $382,500. The Legislature set the price at $85,000 an acre in Resolution 700-2026, dated Sept. 9, which Romaine approved two days later.

The owner, Fresh Pond Farm Realty LLC, keeps the land, which must now stay undeveloped and in agricultural use. "This closing is another important step in the county's five-decade-long commitment to farmland preservation," Romaine said. "This unique arrangement allows farmers to retain ownership and access property equity while ensuring the property remains undeveloped with an agricultural use forever."

The preserved acres are part of a 7.99-acre tract with about 780 feet of road frontage, the Suffolk County Farmland Committee noted when it reviewed the owner's application on March 20, 2025. About 3.4 acres holding a historic barn were carved out of the deal, and the minutes say a second barn is planned there. The tract is split between two zoning districts, with hamlet-centered commercial zoning on its southern end.

In an application to join a state agricultural district, reviewed by the county in April 2025, the operator, Fresh Pond Farm LLC, said it had recently bought the property to grow nursery stock, including deciduous and evergreen shrubs and trees. The operator also runs Laurel Group Landscaping. Its five-year plan called for a barn and irrigation, with sales to landscapers, garden centers and wholesalers. County planners noted that the parcel lies in the Central Suffolk Special Groundwater Protection Area, designated in 1988, and that historic aerial photographs show the land had been cleared for farming.

In scoring the parcel, the committee credited it for protected farmland within a quarter mile and for its road frontage. The county's announcement also cited good soils and community benefits.

On the same road, the Legislature in 2024 authorized the county to buy a 65.7-acre parcel as open space for $5,785,848, for use as a passive park. In May the county closed on development rights to about 34 acres at Fire Chicken Farm, also in Calverton, for $2,500,980. The county put its 2026 farmland closings before this one at 36.97 acres.

Suffolk started the nation's first program to buy farmland development rights in 1974. County figures put the land protected by the county alone at about 11,000 acres and the countywide total, with towns and nonprofits, above 20,000 acres. A 2015 county farmland plan found that Riverhead held about 39 percent of Suffolk's farmland, the most of any town, and that nursery, greenhouse and sod crops made up more than 70 percent of county farm sales in 2012.