Speak Up for Begin Family Farm!

The Short Version

Begin Family Farm is buying the ~50 acre farm in Hollis that we've been leasing for a few years. We've been waiting on the Hollis Planning Board since August to approve and if it takes any longer than January it's going to negatively impact our 2026 season. We need supporters to write letters to the Hollis Planning Board urging them to support farmers and approve us in January!

Skip to how you can help!

Starting at the Beginning

We, Jeff and Stacy Begin, have lived in Hollis for many years but it was just six short years ago that we officially founded Begin Family Farm. We began with market-garden-style fields around our home and prioritized expanding our production every year. 

With our hard work, wonderful customers and market community, we quickly outgrew our available land. So we started spreading the word - there has to be someone with land in town that doesn’t want to see it developed. A providential chat took place, the right person heard our mission and connected us with their neighbors, Gerry and Marie Glover. They had been haying the fields for years but with Gerry in his late 80’s, he was starting to feel done. (Seems reasonable!) They happily offered to lease us several acres of their farmland on Witches Spring Road to expand our farm. With the space, we were able to grow corn for the first time, employ some local teenagers, and expand our production significantly.

Let’s Buy the Farm

The Glover’s land is the old Garnet Rock Farm, a former dairy. The dairy went out of business in 2006 and they have been trying to find a way to keep it a farm for the last twenty years. We have been leasing a portion for two years now and are ready to buy the land, securing its farm future. We came to a purchase agreement with the Glovers in early 2025.

In partnership with the Glovers we created a lot line plan to create a lot around their house so that they can retire while staying in their home and enjoying a front row seat to watch the next generation of farmers. The plan also allows us the flexibility to build two homes in the future, for us and our extended family to live in. Moving these lot lines around requires the review and approval of the Hollis Planning Board.

The Hollis Planning Board

Through the first half of 2025 we worked with a surveyor to do all the necessary ground works, measuring and drawing and submitted our official subdivision application packet to the town in August 2025. The deadline for the September meeting was 3pm and when our surveyor needed until 4pm to physically get the paperwork to Town Hall, we were pushed to the October meeting. Our application was classified as a “minor subdivision,” we were told it was straightforward and they scheduled us for October. 

So we waited for October.

At the October meeting, the Board decided to schedule a site walk to view the property. We do not understand why this was deemed necessary as our application was straightforward and is making a current farm into a farm. Our November site walk was the only one conducted by the Board in all of 2025. A 3-lot “major subdivision” right next door to us on Witches Spring Road and before the Planning Board around the same time, did not require a site walk. 

So we waited for November.

At the end of the site walk, I watched them shake Jeff’s hand and say, “Congratulations.” At the November meeting we went in hoping to be approved. We had hope of having the land purchase done in 2025. We were wrong to have that hope, but as the application process is completely opaque to residents, we didn’t know it still wasn’t the end.

The board once again had only minor comments or questions, so they voted to move us to final review for the next meeting. The fact that there was another hurdle to approval was news to us and it was a gut punch. 

As the submission deadline for the December agenda was the day before this meeting, our “Final Review” was pushed out to January 2026. We asked to be put into the December schedule and were denied. Even more frustrating, the application regarding condos right after us in that meeting had the same predicament, and they were put onto the December agenda. Our attorney asked the town about this inconsistency but was told the condo application is different (we disagree).

So we have to wait for January.

Moving from the “Design Review” stage to “Final Review” meant we were considered a new applicant. After the meeting we immediately got to work with our surveyor to fully resubmit the entire application packages as brand new applications. We reprinted all the paperwork, re-paid all associated fees and re-notified abutters at our expense. So we are starting over, right back where we were in August despite the plans being nearly identical. We are working closely with the town hall staff to give them every opportunity to tell us if anything else is needed before January’s submission deadline.

Out of Time

When we first submitted our application in August, we had a fall plan ready to go as soon as they stamped their approval and we closed on the land. The main project was moving our high tunnel from our home over to the farm. This space is used for seed propagating and for extending our growing season, with spinach for example. The tunnels are still at our home and no one had any spinach this year. We were also hoping to install some drainage along field areas that struggled with water this past season, but that window has now passed.

With the first delay to November, we had to scratch the fall plan and set our sights on the spring. Once we have ownership of the land, we will be able to make investments that we couldn’t before. As such, we have tens of thousands of dollars of blueberry bushes, raspberry brambles and strawberry plants ordered and set to ship for spring. 

With the delay to January, these plants are now in jeopardy. Bushes don’t wait until July for procedural bureaucracy. If we are not approved at the January meeting and granted the waiver to have signatures done outside of a meeting (Meaning the February meeting) our entire Pick Your Own (organic) Fruit plan will have to be scrapped until at least 2027.

In addition, the arrival of spring brings a myriad of other issues into play. For example, we need to put in our order for fertilizer and arrange transportation. These are logistics that need to be arranged now but we don’t know if we are ordering for 5 acres or 45 acres worth of supplies. 

As we wait and live on “pause,” the Glovers are too. They are ready to retire and begin their next chapter. Instead, six months are gone with the end still uncertain.

How You Can Help

Because of this experience, we have no confidence the January meeting will be a straightforward and easy approval. We need your voices to push us over the finish line! We're asking for anyone who is willing to voice their support for keeping the farm a farm, to submit letters to the town before January 13th.

Since we're once again considered a new application, our cases will open for public comment again as well. After 6 months of waiting on stagnant bureaucracy, we are now up against the spring and the time is now. If the Planning Board does not approve us in January, it will cause significant impacts on our plans for the 2026 season. We have new perennials on their way, orders to make and infrastructure to build - thousands of dollars in investments only for land that we own. 

Submitting Letters to the Planning Board

The “public comment period” is the only time the Board accepts comments from the public so it is imperative everyone says everything they want to say, or the window to voice your opinion will have closed. Letters are due by January 13th to allow the board members to review them ahead of the meeting.

All public comments must go through the Planning Office. Please do not reach out to board members, it is against the rules.

Suggested Content and Format of Your Letter

We have created a template letter to help get you started. You can simply fill in your information in the brackets or you can add/edit it to your liking.

If you’d like to write your own, here are a few tips:

• Address your letter to "Hollis Planning Board members".
• Reference the "Begin Family Farm/Witches Spring Road Subdivision" to ensure the letter is recorded correctly.
• Indicate whether you are a resident of Hollis or other interested party.
• Always be polite and respectful, don't accuse.

Gerry Glover wrote a letter to the Board urging them to approve. It is a good example that may give you some inspiration. Read Gerry's letter here.

Suggested talking points

• Encourage the board to do everything possible to approve the farm's applications (there are two) in the January 20 meeting. If this extends out into February or March, it's going to cause a serious financial hardship to the farm's season and our family.
• Remind them that the people of Hollis expect the Board to preserve the town's rural character, and that farms are a cornerstone of that rural character.
• The Board should support and encourage the town's farmers.
• Thoughts related to food security and local food access. We donated a lot of produce through the Hillsborough County Gleaners this year, which ends up at food banks and soup kitchens.
• This farm would otherwise have turned into several dozen houses if we weren't buying it. The town has tried to purchase parts of this farm in the past, but failed to do so.

The Board will accept any written comments up to six days before the scheduled meeting on January 20. To be safe, we'll say all written comments must be submitted by January 13, 2026.

How to Submit Your Letter

The easiest way to submit your comments is via the town's website at this link: https://www.hollisnh.org/FormCenter/Dept-Board-Contact-Forms-10/Send-Message-to-Town-Planner-Environment-63

You can either write your comments there in the text box directly, or attach a document with the letter.

To submit by US mail, mail your letter to:
Hollis Planning Board
C/O Kevin Anderson
7 Monument Square
Hollis, NH 03049

To submit in person, go to Hollis Town Hall (7 Monument Square), enter through the front double doors and walk to the desk on the left under the "Planning" sign. Say you'd like to submit a letter in reference to a pending Planning Board application. Kevin Anderson or another staff member will accept it and file it for review by the Board.

Let Us Know

Please let us know via email or social media comment when you submit a letter so we can follow-up and ensure it was recorded properly. If you feel comfortable doing so you can send Jeff a copy of your letter. We will print all of them and bring them with us to the meeting, just in case. Email: jbegin@beginfamilyfarm.com

Thank You!

We run this farm full time, as our family’s sole source of income. With this purchase and our plans for spring, we are trying to invest in Hollis and expand what we can offer back to this community that we love. Thank you for being here, reading our story and taking the time to speak up for agriculture.