A 175-year-old New Jersey family farm is facing extinction as a town council looks to take over the 21-acre property to build its latest round of affordable housing, one relative told the Daily Caller.

In a case that has garnered national attention, the Cranbury Township Committee told Andy Henry through a lawyer in April that he must surrender his family farm or face legal consequences, Henry told the Daily Caller. The property owner and former Cranbury Township Mayor Jay Taylor alleged that there may be deeper issues with the township council in the case.

“We survived all these crises over the years — house fire, great depression, my grandfather dying during the great depression,” Henry told the Caller. “It’s always been a small family, so keeping it going has been kind of remarkable.”

Henry and his brother, Christopher, now both live in New Mexico but co-own the New Jersey farm their great-grandfather bought in 1850, according to NJ.com. Henry told the Caller the brothers rent out the farm to a local tenant, Tom, who raises the sheep and cattle on the hobby farm and takes care of the property. He said the two have no plans to let the farm go anytime soon.

Henry filed a complaint in the superior court of New Jersey against the township committee in June to prevent them from taking the farm via eminent domain, he announced in a June 24 meeting. Eminent domain, stemming from the Fifth Amendment, allows the government to take land from private owners with just compensation in order to serve a public purpose.

The farm is surrounded by warehouses and busy roads, is far from grocery stores and has other features making it a less than ideal location for affordable housing, Henry and Taylor told the Caller. Henry said the farm is not blighted and the property is fully operational, unlike in other cases of eminent domain.

But township committee members have allegedly ignored Henry’s arguments and are moving forward with plans to take over the farm, according to NJ.com. Henry told the Caller he has until the end of August to file a legal complaint objecting to the township’s plan. The committee told the family in early August that it has made plans for an appraiser to assess the property in early September, he claimed.

This, according to Henry, “means pressing ahead with eminent domain despite this period before Aug. 31 when they should be trying to work something out instead of paying taxpayer money for an appraiser.”

The Henry farm was not originally on the list of properties the committee was considering, but they decided to take the farm by eminent domain after other owners declined to sell, according to Taylor. Henry said the committee did not contact him about considering his property before he received the letter in April. (RELATED: South Dakota Stops Massive Green Energy Land Grab In Its Tracks)

FIGHT TO SAVE FARM: Cranbury Township is looking to take ownership of a 175-year-old family farm to build affordable housing. But brothers Chris and Andy Henry say that they don’t want to sell. https://t.co/c5AQaEaRSq pic.twitter.com/vtJZhXxTlX

— News12NJ (@News12NJ) June 18, 2025

When Henry received the letter in April, the committee had already settled on Walters Apartment Group — a for-profit apartment management company — to build the town’s fourth round of affordable housing, the owner told the Caller. The committee allegedly copied Walters on the letter to Henry, which Taylor labeled unusual, citing his experience working on former affordable housing projects in Cranbury.

Whereas the committee heard bids from several entities in previous rounds, Walters appears to be the only builder they have been in communication with for the fourth round of affordable housing in Cranbury, which has never happened before, according to the former mayor.

“[The township committee] included that same developer in the site plan selection process that’s now leading to eminent domain,” Taylor said. “So that developer was part of the subcommittee, not in public meetings, choosing the site where they were going to then turn around and develop.”

Since 1964, Cranbury has worked with Cranbury Housing Associates (CHA), a non-profit affordable housing builder. The township has built at least 53 affordable housing units with CHA since 2005 at an average cost of $143,000 per unit, according to a July 10 Mayor’s Update from Cranbury Township Mayor Lisa Knierim.

Cranbury has also partnered with Ingerman on affordable housing and has built 90 units with the group at an average cost of $75,000 per unit since 2005, according to Knierim’s announcement.

The mayor did not list the proposed costs for the newest round of housing with Walters, according to the update. She said the plan includes 190 units and the township would fund all land acquisition fees.

“Final costs will depend on appraised land value,” Knierim wrote.

Documents included in the township’s spending plan for the upcoming round of housing outline more than $45 million dedicated to building 130 units in two phases on the Henry Farm property.

Taylor alleged to the Caller that the township committee stands to potentially make $5 million by working with Walters. He also claimed it was odd that the township chose a for-profit company. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Housing Sec Wants To Take A Sledgehammer To Bureaucratic ‘Red Tape’)

“You have a developer that’s a for-profit developer and they’re making $5 million, but we also have — for over 60 years — a non-profit in our community that’s built affordable housing for the community since the 1960s, and they’re a non-profit that’s more than capable of doing this project, and they actually have presented an alternative plan,” Taylor said.

Taylor told the Caller that everything seems legal from Walters’ standpoint but claimed the township committee’s actions are questionable. (RELATED: Sunny Hostin Makes Head-Scratching Connection Between Alligator Alcatraz And Liberal Policy)

“If I were a business, I’d sit there and say, ‘Thank you very much for including me here, this is great,’” Taylor said. “But from a taxpayer standpoint, from a fiduciary standpoint, from a transparency standpoint, it raises a lot of questions.”

Knierim declined to comment on the situation to the Caller.

“As this is an evolving situation and currently under litigation the Township and I have no comment at this time. You can continue to view our Township Committee meetings and look for my Mayor’s updates for any further information that can be shared publicly,” she said.

Walters Apartment Group did not respond before time of publication.

The township’s spending plan includes a clause allowing “up to $2,323,718.74” from the township’s affordable housing trust fund to be used for “administrative purposes.” Several positions are deemed eligible to receive the funds, including the township administrator.

The township outlined a similar guideline in the 2016 spending plan for the third round of housing. However, there was no mention of the township administrator being an eligible position to receive trust fund money. Taylor told the Caller he questions why the position is listed in this round.

“The township administrator is a salaried position in the town,” Taylor said. “The question is, if you wanted to use blanket language, then you’d put everybody there, so why just put that person there? That person is named along with the roles … that are hired, professional people — attorney, planner and engineer. So it seems very odd that the township administrator would be named if you were just doing it to say, ‘Hey, by law, these are the people that could be paid.’”

Cranbury opted to not use trust fund money for the fourth round of affordable housing and will put the money toward purchasing land for the project and repaying bonds instead, according to the mayor’s July update.

Cranbury Township Administrator Denise Marabello did not respond to the Caller’s request for comment.

In June, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins signed a letter launching an investigation into the township’s housing project to see if it uses any kind of federal funding, including U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grants.

USDA and New Jersey HUD did not respond to the Caller’s request for comment but Henry said his lawyers are having an “ongoing conversation” with USDA officials. (RELATED: Trump Shakes Up Bloated Agriculture Department, Relocates Bureaucrats Out Of Beltway)

Henry Farm Update:

Our position has been clear from the start: America’s farmland will be protected.🇺🇸

Today I met with Andy Henry and a growing coalition of experts who have come together to save Henry Farm (USDA-Certified Prime Farmland!! 💪). @USDA remains ready to work… pic.twitter.com/M7atpPVg92

— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) July 8, 2025

In an effort to offset Henry’s legal fees, friends and local residents organized a GoFundMe and have hosted events at the farm to raise awareness for Henry’s case.

Henry and Taylor told the Caller it can take months or years to settle legal outcomes but said they do not intend on giving up.

“While this is not a left or right side of the aisle issue, it’s still a political issue in terms of doing what’s right for the farm – not erasing their history and not erasing their legacy,” Taylor said. “But also of doing what’s right for those future residents and not isolating them outside of the community.”

The Caller also reached out to Cranbury Township Municipal Clerk Debra Rubin for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication.