Bylaw seen as aiding farmers
Homebuyers would be forewarned of unpleasant aspects
Almost a quarter of Berlin is farm or forest, and Carl Wickstrom wants to keep it that way.
Wickstrom and his colleagues on the town's Agricultural Commission are supporting a proposed bylaw that would declare Berlin a farming community. The effect would be to inform prospective homebuyers that they might have to put up with spraying, the aroma of manure, and other byproducts of farming if they want to live in the town.
Called a right-to-farm bylaw, the rule mandates that property buyers sign a disclosure form saying they understand they are moving into a farm community either before they acquire land in Berlin or within 21 days of their purchase.
The bylaw would be a tool to help farmers sustain their way of life, said Wickstrom, who owns Golden Skep Farm on Linden Street, where he and his wife raise and sell daylilies, hostas, and honey.
Wickstrom wants Town Meeting members to vote on the bylaw in May or sooner if Berlin holds a Special Town Meeting in the fall.
"I think towns like Berlin have to do what they can to preserve the rural nature of the town and hold off the continuous encroachment of malls," Wickstrom said.
"Although this isn't a panacea, it will help us keep the rural character of the town."
It's not clear what legal standing the disclosure would have, however.
Kent Lage, assistant commissioner of the state Department of Agricultural Resources, said no court has cited the bylaw since the state allowed towns to adopt it in 2004. Since then, 59 towns have adopted it, Lage said.
But Lage added that the bylaw helps towns avoid problems between farmers and nonfarmers. With the bylaw, he said, would-be homeowners know what they are getting into before they buy a property next to a farm, and farmers already hard-pressed to make a living can avoid having to defend themselves against neighbors' complaints about normal farm activities.
"It's not symbolic," he said. "It is indeed designed to help agriculture deal with its new neighbors. Agriculture has been in these communities for hundreds and hundreds of years. You have people who are moving into these towns who are not necessarily used to an apple orchard or a dairy farm. With agriculture occasionally comes noise and dust and maybe a smell that is unusual, and odd working hours. But those are things people in those communities value about agriculture."
State legislation allows towns to impose $300 fines for not signing the disclosure, but Berlin's Agricultural Commission has opted not to include that part of the bylaw in their version.
Other parts of the bylaw included in Berlin's version would reaffirm farmers' rights to farm in the town and designate the Agricultural Commission as an interlocutor in disputes involving farmers. Legitimate complaints about nonagricultural activities on farms would still be permitted, Wickstrom said.
Farms and forests for lumbering cover 2,050 acres in Berlin, or 23 percent of the town, said town assessor Diane Peterson. Massachusetts is home to 6,100 farms, Lage said, for a total of 518,000 acres, or around 10 percent of the state's total territory.
The bylaw is popular because 7 acres of agricultural land are lost every day to development, said Lage, citing a 2003 Massachusetts Audubon Society report.
"Development pressure on agriculture is enormous everywhere," said Lage. "This is agriculture reasserting its longstanding tradition in Massachusetts as being an integral part of the community."
Doris Lowe of Woodward Avenue in Berlin said she was in favor of any measures that would promote or preserve farming in the town. She added, however, that keeping farms profitable and working is another matter, especially when developers are offering top dollar for large tracts of open land.
"You can't blame the farmers," Lowe said. "Their business is down, so they're selling out." 