N.J. residents used a grassroots campaign to thwart a warehouse developer. They fear his return.

Last November, a central New Jersey developer announced a plan to build three warehouses on nearly two million square feet of farmland in Pilesgrove, Salem County.

Reacting as if they were being invaded, residents of this township of 4,000 executed a grassroots counterattack.

Within a week, they’d organized a leadership team, created a Go Fund Me site and a Facebook page, hired a lawyer, and distributed 1,600 fliers urging people to attend a planning board meeting at which the developer would request a zoning variance for the desired land along rural Auburn Road.

More than 250 people showed up for the meeting in a room that could accommodate 100. Following COVID-19 protocols, the board postponed until after Christmas. The team spent the holidays pounding 150 anti-warehouse yard signs into frozen lawns and farms.

While many would accept warehouses on larger local highways — as laid out in the township’s master plan for land use — the idea of fields of concrete boxes along a two-lane road in what locals call “God’s country” was anathema. And residents bemoaned the fact they’d bear the cost of repairing local roads wrecked by convoys of 18-wheelers.

Before the planning board reconvened, the developer withdrew his proposal without explanation.

“You all crushed it!” team leader Wayne Wagner, 50, a financial adviser, wrote on Facebook, celebrating the victory of a cluster of farmers, blue-collar workers, and affluent country squires.

But their glory was short-lived.

In the spring, the developer, John Kainer, of Auburn Realty Partners LLC in Manasquan, Monmouth County, reasserted himself.

In his initial request to change agricultural zoning to light industrial, Kainer hadn’t yet owned the land. But recently, he paid $1.7 million for about 155 agricultural acres on opposite sides of Auburn Road, tax records indicate.

A 990,000-square-foot warehouse would be built on one 73-acre parcel that had been owned by a North Jersey property company, according to tax records, and previously proposed construction plans. It would have room for 426 cars and 248 trailer spaces. Other plans weren’t clear.

“That says he’s not going away,” Wagner said.

Asked for comment, Kainer, who hasn’t yet filed for a new variance, said, “I have no interest in talking.”

Because the Pilesgrove planning board and township administrators would not discuss the project, either, few details were available.

But one thing was clear to Wagner: “He [Kainer] is still trying to shove this down our throat. We’re his lottery ticket. So, let’s have the fight.”

Throughout Salem and Gloucester Counties, gigantic, squat warehouses have “popped up like mushrooms,” said Christine Nolan, director of South Jersey Land and Water Trust, an environmental nonprofit.

“There’s an onslaught in these towns.”

Nolan said Auburn Road development could damage groundwater, streams, and animal habitats. Light, noise, and air pollution could sully bucolic terrain.

Because each township negotiates its own projects, it’s impossible to calculate the number of warehouses being planned to supplant corn, soybean, and squash fields, real estate experts said.

Commercial broker Giacomo Reggente of Axon Real Estate in Pilesgrove said 12 warehouses were built in the Pilesgrove area in the last two years, many in nearby Gloucester County.

Farm acres have beckoned warehouse development for Amazon (with a Salem County site on U.S. Route 40), Target (in Gloucester County on U.S. Route 322), and other companies hungry for centers to store products as online shopping proliferates, he said.

Most warehouses are developing between the Commodore Barry Bridge and the Delaware Memorial Bridge — “low-population farmlands near truck arteries like the Jersey Turnpike,” Reggente added.

John Hasse, chairman of the Department of Geography, Planning, and Sustainability at Rowan University, said the pandemic accelerated remote shopping, “which moved forward warehouse building a decade or more in two years.”

Warehouses bear profits.

South Jersey industrial land increased from $100,000 to $500,000 an acre in the last five years, according to Jeff Lucas of Rose Commercial Real Estate in Marlton.

Meanwhile, the value of industrial buildings has doubled in three years, from $50 per square foot to $100.

Add to that an expanding $20-an-hour job market. And, Lucas said, townships reap $1 million tax “bonanzas” for every million square feet of warehouse (Technically, the money goes to townships, counties, and school boards.)

That cash accrues without population increases, obviating expenditures for additional schools and police.

For many farmers, land is “their only retirement plan,” Hasse said. Developers usher them into their advanced years as millionaires, Lucas said.

But in Pilesgrove, the conversation isn’t always profit-oriented.

“I’m a farmer, but I see development as potentially devastating,” said Scott Donnini, 55, co-owner of an Auburn Road vineyard and winery. “I haven’t met a soul who’s for it.

“And when the next change in the economy comes and warehouses are abandoned, there’s no reclaiming the land. Buildings stay forever.

“Calling that progress makes no sense at all.”

Pilesgrove Mayor Kevin Eachus said that although extra tax revenue is beneficial, “it’s not the main thing.”

Values prescribed by generations of agrarian living permeate local culture. “We’re known for Cowtown Rodeo, Salem County Fair,” Eachus said. “We’re a strong community that comes together” to preserve land.

For locals, the most conspicuous example of land allegiance is the Harris family, which owns the rodeo and has worked more than 1,000 acres in Pilesgrove for an estimated 13 generations. The family is known for their preference of dealing with cows over developers, and has turned away any number of cash-toting warehouse builders.

Reggente understands, explaining that Pilesgrove is “Nebraska farm-y in a Happy Days time warp. And they all speak with a twang.”

Still, while it’s impressive how so much of the township opposes Auburn development, he added, “it’s inevitable developers will build warehouses on country roads like Auburn. These guys have serious cash and staying power. Sooner or later, most older-generation farmers sell.”

Throughout America, people are buying farmland as investments, believing it will be developed by builders who will construct warehouses “on spec.” Confident buyers will materialize, experts say.

The only option for small towns such as Pilesgrove is negotiation, said Reggente, who is proficient in Aikido, a martial art that espouses flowing with the motion of the attacker rather than opposing him straight on.

“Residents can’t go to planning meetings as angry mobs,” he said. “And developers can’t be ogres.”

In exchange for land, Reggente suggests, townships should demand concessions: traffic limits and road fees, for example.

Still waging war, Wagner acknowledges there’s always a need to modernize and allow builders in. After all, that’s part of the master plan, he said: “Put up warehouses in previously designated industrial zones.

“But let’s retain rural areas to protect our way of life.”

That’s the opinion of Mike Fraser, 57, owner of Sneakers & Spokes bicycle shop in Woodstown, a borough completely surrounded by Pilesgrove.

“This is the best county in the region to ride bikes in because of lack of traffic,” he said. “In the end, how much of this Amazon world can we live in?”