Pigs Arrive At Disputed Manalapan Land

MANALAPAN, NJ -- This is certainly one way to bring home the bacon.

Facing mounting mortgage payments and a lack of other options, developer Joe Spano began work on his controversial plan to build a pig farm on an area of land he owns in Manalapan.

Bernie Frojmovich, a Manalapan resident,‎ first spotted a small herd of pigs on the land Tuesday, surrounded by a chain link fence. There appear to be about a dozen pigs in the pen, he said.

The sight of a dozen pigs means Spano is upping the ante in his messy battle with Manalapan Township: Spano has said he wants to go ahead with full-scale pig farming, but he needs the Township's permission. However, he can bring a small number of pigs — fewer than 25 — onto the property without permission, under New Jersey's Right To Farm laws. And that appears to be exactly what he's doing.

The section of land, at the corner of Rt. 33 and Millhurst Road, has seen multiple proposals but no development over the past decade. Ideas Spano has suggested include a sprawling shopping center and affordable housing development, which would have included a multiple sclerosis research center. However, intense public opposition and zoning issues prevented any of his previous proposals from being built.

In a previous interview, Spano dispelled persistent rumors that his pig farm idea was dirty payback, telling Patch the move was simply to earn more income.

“There’s no ill intent — that’s the thing that irks me, that I’ve heard through the grapevine, that I’m trying to be vindictive,” Spano told Patch.

When the plan was first discussed in mid-September, it was unclear if Spano had the right to farm on the land. And there's plenty of mudslinging coming from Manalapan officials, who dismissed Spano's pig farm idea as a mere "press release."

“The Committee had discussed the ‘press release’ about the pig farm that owner Joe Spano plans for his property during executive session and they had determined that the property, in a VC (Village Commercial) zone is not permitted to be a farm,” the township attorney Roger McGlocklin said during a Township meeting at the time. “Farming is not a permitted use in the VC zone."

But Spano says he's not backing down from this barnyard battle.

“I do have a right to farm,” Spano told Patch, referring to New Jersey’s Right To Farm Act and Manalapan’s Right to Farm ordinance.

Image via Bernie Frojmovich