Holmdel agree to pay $4.5 million to buy Potter’s farm on Red Hill Road, an operation that dates to 1841.Health care nonprofit United Methodist Communities had previously purchased land and had approval to develop it as a dementia care village.Neighboring residents were not happy that a health care facility would be built right next to them on farmland zoned for residential use.HOLMDEL — Potter’s farm could soon be preserved for open space, after the Township Committee voted on Monday to introduce an ordinance to buy the farm, preventing the construction of a novel — but controversial — dementia village.The committee to pay $4.5 million for the farm, located at 117 Red Hill Road. The final vote will take place on March 25 at the Holmdel Town Hall. “We as a Township Committee had now captured, prevented development on 63 acres in town, including the 17 acres on Potter’s Farm, which many call the Gateway to Holmdel,” Committeeman Rocco Impreveduto said. The first house built on the farm, also known as the William Potter Homestead, in 1841 predates the township itself by 16 years, according to “Images of America: Holmdel and Pleasant Valley” by Gerald V. Ceres. It was built by Mathias Conover. The Potter family bought the land in 1920 and ran a hardware store next to their livestock. In 2020, the health care nonprofit United Methodist Communities bought the property for $3.96 million, according to Monmouth County property records, and the Potters moved to Upper Freehold. The nonprofit also had to negotiate with a developer that had plans to build an affordable housing neighborhood on the land. According to an interview in 2021 with now retired CEO Larry Carlson, the total cost of the purchase was $5.5 million.The plan was to build a 105-bed dementia village, the first of its kind in the United States. It would be called The Enclave and provide services like grocery stores and theaters within a fully-enclosed perimeter. Neighboring residents were not happy that a health care facility would be built right next to them on farmland zoned for residential use. But after over a year of delays, the zoning board voted 5-2 in 2022 to approve the $12,000-per-month village. Both the residents and Middletown sued the zoning board and United Methodist Communities to stop the development of the dementia village, but were rejected by a judge last July. The next month, the township began negotiating with the nonprofit to buy the land.On Monday, the township committee announced that it would put a down payment of $214,286 on the property, with the funds coming from the Township’s Open Space Trust Fund. It would borrow the rest through bonds and notes. According to the ordinance, an appraisal by Newmark Valuation and Advisory valued the property at $6.3 million. Mayor Brian Foster wrote in a text that while the valuation was at $6.3 million, “we were negotiating with them based on their original purchase price of $3.9 million. The property has appreciated and we always wanted to keep this as open space and recreation.”“I know it’s not easy to spend this money,” resident Jay Yannello said about the vote, “But you’re making some very smart land decisions. … We’re doing what we can to preserve the town the best we can.” The Township Committee also voted to approve $79,640 for a “due diligence” engineering investigation of the property. United Methodist Communities did not respond to a request for comment. Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Ban …
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