Buying The Farm: The Battle Over Friendly Farms

The county purchased the property through the 2006 Environmental Bond Act, which authorized the issuance of $150 million in bonds to fund the preservation of open space and revitalization projects. Through this sale the land was guaranteed by law to remain a farm for the community to enjoy.

“There are only five farms remaining in Nassau County,” says Legis. Norma Gonsalves, who had the property nominated for inclusion in the Environmental Bond Act and negotiated the sale of the land with Mark. “I saw this as an opportunity to take this piece of property to keep it from being developed and keeping it as open space, because it’s the only open space left in East Meadow.”

Who would run that open space was another story.

The Environmental Bond Act states, “The County intends to enter into use and occupancy permits with the operator of the farm. The operator of the farm will be responsible for the complete management and maintenance of the property.”

And that’s how things stayed for the next two years. Friendly Farms had originally leased the land from Mark and established their business in 2004. But when the county took over the land in 2008, the Brennans had to rent the property in 30-day increments through the month-to-month permits. That is, until Oct. 18, 2010, when they were told by phone they had to leave.

“It was not the intention of the county or anyone else running that farm to create a landlord-tenant relationship under this permit,” says Gonsalves. “This was merely a month-to-month permit. That’s all it ever was.”

Gonsalves says it was vital that the land be protected through the sale of the property to the county because otherwise the farmland would be sold to real estate developers.

“It took me four years to get [Mark] to agree that developing the property for one-family homes would not be in keeping with the character of the area and certainly not in keeping with what the community wanted,” says Gonsalves. “It was to be open space and farmland. Eventually, in 2008, he realized he would prefer to see open space rather than 30 to 40 homes on that property. It is county land and it is going to remain farmland.”

Mark says he never had any intention of putting homes on the land as the county claims.

“I was holding out for more money,” says Mark. “But I wanted this land maintained as a farm.”

And it will be. But the form that farm will take has yet to be determined.

By law, when the county takes over a property it must release to the public a Request for Proposal (RFP), and begin a bidding process to solicit possible plans, in this case for an organic farm, from the public. The idea was to enter into a 10-year operating term with one of the proposers to take care of the property in an agreed upon manner, while the county, or Nassau taxpayers, retained ownership of the land.

“Once the county purchased the land, it needed to make sure the land was going to be maintained as a farm, and in order to do that—in order to do that legally—they had to go out for bids,” says Gonsalves. “Unfortunately there were only two bids: the present Friendly Farms and Cornell Cooperative Extension.”

According to the Brennans, though, not only were they not given this request until the deadline was fast approaching, but, although the land had been the subject of town meetings and public notices, they were also the last ones to be notified.

“They never called us or e-mailed us,” says Danielle. “We were here cleaning up, and people started coming around saying they may be bidding on the place and asking all these questions.”

The RFP is a 35-page document outlining very specific instructions for putting a bid in writing and submitting it to the county for review. The written bid is then followed by an oral presentation, given by the bidder, in front of an evaluation committee, detailing the intentions for the property.

The same day the Brennans realized the land was being surveyed by potential bidders—March 3, 2010—the Brennans say they contacted the county and were told the RFP had gone out months ago. They say they had never received it.

“Why are people coming to our farm, and we haven’t even received an invitation to bid on our own business?” says Brennan’s daughter, also named Bernadette.

The county sent the Brennans the RFP via e-mail that day and extended the bidding process by two weeks, at their request, to allow the Brennans time to submit their proposal—an attempt to make them miss filing their bid by the deadline, according to the Brennans.