COLTS NECK - When Tracey Stewart finished giving her testimony in front of the township's planning board Tuesday night about the animal sanctuary and farm education center she hopes to open, none of the board members had any follow-up questions.

Her husband, actor and comedian Jon Stewart, however, couldn't resist.

"I'd like to know how much this is going to cost me," the former host of 'The Daily Show' joked.

Nearly two hours later, the Stewarts' application for preliminary major site plan approval for the 45-acre Hockhockson Farm was unanimously approved by the planning board.

The culmination of the lengthy application process - which at least one board member told them after the meeting took longer than it should have - brought tears to Tracey Stewart's eye.

She said she was more excited about the future rather than being concerned about the past.

"It's one of those things like where after you give birth you forget about the pain. So right now I'm feeling really good and positive," she told NJ Advance Media.

While the approval process did take time, Jon Stewart praised the township's officials for being "great partners and collaborators" in the project.

"I'm just really pleased, not just with the outcome but also with the process of creating a project that would be amenable to what they do, but would still honor the spirit of the project," he said. "I thought the process itself was approached in a way in that really gave us great comfort in the investment of time and money we were making into the community."

Tracey Stewart, who is a best-selling author and animal activist, said the farm would grow crops as well as care for several rescued farm animals, including cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens.

The farm will host tours and educational programs - teaching about sustainable agriculture and animal care - for the public and schools on a reservation and invitation basis.

"As of tonight, we can finally give people an idea of when we will open, which is 2018," Tracey Stewart said. "And we can really get to work now and start hiring people and start making this a reality."

The Stewarts reportedly paid $4 million for the historic Hockhockson Farm on Route 537 east of Normandy Road in 2016. They initially planned to turn their Middletown farm into the sanctuary but shifted plans to the Colts Neck property.

According to its Zillow.com listing, the 45-acre property features a circa 1777 manor home with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, plus two 2-bedroom cottages, a pool, pond, equine facility and arena, six barns, five pastures, five paddocks, and a farmstand area. The same family owned the home more than 200 years.

The Stewarts received permission from the board to host twice-monthly nighttime educational programs for 50 to 100 people, as well as up to six special events or fundraisers for 200 to 250 people annually.

However, in order to appease neighbors concerned about noise from those events, the couple agreed to host no more than four of those special events in a year. They also agreed to several requests from the planning board in order to help the application move forward.

"So much of the project is about community. So you want to the community that you are invested in to want you to be there and to be invested in it as well," Jon Stewart said. "You want it to be mutual love, not unrequited love."

Rob Spahr may be reached at rspahr@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TheRobSpahr. Find NJ.com on Facebook.