A builder wants to finish a Jackson project
that stopped in the 1970s.

A builder wants to finish a Jackson Township neighborhood that was started in the 1970s and never completed. Garden View Homes LLC has asked the township's Zoning Board of Adjustment for permission to put townhomes on 17.6 acres on South Hope Chapel Road. The zoning there does not allow townhomes, so the board has to rule on that before any detailed plan for the site is drawn.

There is already a small neighborhood on the property. The zoning board approved 148 condominium units there in 1971 and again in 1976, and 28 of them went up in the 1970s, in seven buildings of four units each. Concrete foundations were poured for more buildings and nothing was put on them. The builder's planner told the board the property has since grown over and its roads are in poor shape, and that the 28 homes standing today would not be touched.

The board has to decide how many homes fit on the land. The zoning allows 3 homes per acre, which works out to 52 on this site, and that 52 includes the 28 already standing. The builder is asking for up to 8 homes per acre, which is 98 new homes, or 126 once the existing 28 are counted in. One in five of the homes would be affordable housing, counted against all 126 rather than against the market rate homes alone.

Nothing was decided. Board members and residents pushed back on how many homes were planned, and the builder's attorney asked the board to put off a decision, which it did, to December 2. The plan would also run public water and sewer to the 28 homes on the site, which are on wells and septic now.

The application was held over at the August 19 meeting and has not been decided. The board's next hearing on it is December 2. Written by Justin Kelly, NJ Real Estate Broker-Salesperson, from the Jackson Township Zoning Board of Adjustment minutes.