Jackson Township has 39 home lots
waiting on three hearings.

Jackson Township's Planning Board has three major subdivisions waiting on its calendar, and together they propose 39 single family lots. None has been heard yet. All three are listed for initial testimony, which is the first time an applicant puts its case to the board.

The largest is at East Veterans Highway and Bowman Road, where an application seeks preliminary and final major subdivision and site plan approval for 21 single family lots and 4 affordable housing units. It was recorded complete on May 1 and is down for September 14. At 102 Sams Road, a second application proposes 9 single family dwelling lots along with 2 basin lots, and is listed for October 5. The third, on South Hope Chapel Road, proposes 9 single family lots, an affordable housing lot and a stormwater basin lot, and is listed for November 2.

The basin lots are worth reading carefully. They hold stormwater, not houses, and the agenda does not say homes go on them. The same care applies to the affordable housing figures: one application counts units and another counts a lot, and the document does not describe what either would look like.

What the three have in common is the gap between filing and hearing. Each was recorded complete months before it reached a date, one of them back in March. For anyone looking for ground in Ocean County, that gap is the useful part, because the agenda is where a project becomes public well before anything is decided. Nothing about who would build these, what the homes would cost, or when work might start is on the record at this stage.

An agenda schedules a hearing and is not an approval. None of the three applications had been heard when this was written. Written by Justin Kelly, NJ Real Estate Broker-Salesperson, from the Jackson Township Planning Board agenda.