Montgomery Township, despite its strong agricultural heritage and successful farmland leasing programs, faces “food access gaps.” While the township is one of the wealthiest in New Jersey, at least 14% of its working families earn above the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) but not enough to afford basic necessities—housing, food, childcare, transportation, and healthcare—in the high-cost state of New Jersey. Another 3.7% of families live below the poverty line, bringing that to 17.7% of the population that cannot afford, and/or have limited access to local agricultural products [Nutritious veggies, grass-fed beef, locally raised poultry, and more].
Solutions for Montgomery’s food access gap would be for township officials to emphasize the construction of “food forests” or community gardens on municipality-owned land. Another is to expand the existing Montgomery Friends Farmers Market program to include a mobile component and more local farmers.
This was one key finding of a comprehensive “health checkup” study presented by a Rutgers University professor and his graduate students at the township planning board meeting on May 11.
As part of the Plan4HealthNJ project, Bloustein Professor Thomas G. Dallessio and two graduate students presented findings and suggestions to better integrate public health into municipal land-use. The project, initiated by the American Planning Association New Jersey Chapter with a $1.5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, selected Montgomery to serve as the study’s “suburban” typology, alongside Bethlehem Township (rural typology) in Hunterdon County, and Paterson (urban typology) in Passaic County.
Professor Dallessio led a studio semester for eight graduate students at Rutgers Bloustein School, in which they worked with Montgomery Township planners, health officials, staff, and the mayor to explore the relationships between public health and land use, transportation, housing, and conservation.
“When I put together the syllabus …, I wanted to make sure the students not only beta tested the specific topics within the toolkits, but also to a place-based analysis. I selected Montgomery, partly because I have worked with them before. They’ve been a phenomenal resource, too. The fact that the township administrator [Lori Savron] is a professional planner, is amazing. And, the township has a full time public health official [Devangi Patel]. It just, it made all the sense in the world. This choice was easy. And when we called, Lori said, ‘yes,’ immediately.”