Gloucester Township's old golf course
could become 743 homes.

The 154 acre property on Sicklerville Road in Gloucester Township was the nation's first African American-owned 18-hole golf course. A plan filed with the town would turn it into 743 homes. Freeway Golf Course was purchased by four Black businessmen in 1967 and hosted its last round in November 2015. The property has been for sale since 2016, and an earlier proposal to build a warehouse there was withdrawn after neighbors objected.

Lennar, filing as Hamilton based US Home LLC, proposes 177 single family homes and 63 age-restricted single family homes, plus 222 townhouses, 168 stacked townhouses and 113 affordable rental apartments. Sales prices in the filing range from roughly $365,000 for a stacked townhouse to $497,000 for a single family home, with affordable apartment rents estimated around $1,240 a month. The property owner is listed as Black Horse Properties LLC of Blackwood.

The land is zoned for about one single family home per acre, far fewer than the plan calls for, so Lennar is asking the Gloucester Township Zoning Board of Adjustment for permission to build at this size. A study the developer filed with the plan estimates the homes would add about 2,086 residents and about 315 school age children, split between the Gloucester Township and Black Horse Pike Regional school districts. The same study estimates the property taxes would more than cover the added cost of town services.

A neighborhood group, Friends of Freeway, is fighting the plan over how many homes it adds and the effect on traffic, schools and open space. Dozens have come to zoning board meetings. The hearing has been postponed twice at the developer's request, most recently in September, and is now tentatively set for October 28.

If you are watching new construction in Camden County, this is a reminder that big properties sitting empty, not just farm fields, are where builders look for their next sites. Nothing here has been approved, and the plan, its unit counts and its pricing can all still change before the board rules.

A zoning variance hearing schedules review; it is not an approval. Plans, unit counts and pricing are as filed and can change. Written by Justin Kelly, NJ Real Estate Broker-Salesperson, from the 70and73.com news report.