An estate's 65 acres on Creek Road
are filed as 24 house lots.

An estate has filed a preliminary major subdivision for 451 Creek Road in Moorestown, proposing to divide 65.47 acres into 24 residential lots. The property is Block 8000, Lots 3, 4 and 5. The application is listed as new business on the Township of Moorestown Planning Board's agenda for Thursday, September 3, and the board will take it up at 7:00 PM at Moorestown Town Hall on West Second Street.

Two details in the filing are worth separating out. The subdivision is proposed to conform to the R-1 zoning district, and the applicant is not requesting any variances. Together those mean the plan as drawn fits what the ordinance already allows on that ground, so the board is being asked to approve a subdivision rather than to make an exception to its own rules.

That is not a small distinction. A variance is a request to depart from the zoning, and it is where a land application tends to slow down or stop: it needs its own proofs, it draws the most objection, and it is the part neighbors turn out for. An application that needs none is asking a narrower question, and narrower questions tend to move faster. It is still an application, and the board can approve it, approve it with conditions, or send it back.

For a landowner, the useful read is what the zoning was doing before anybody filed anything. Twenty-four lots on 65 acres is a little under three acres apiece, which is the shape R-1 produces on ground like this. If you are holding acreage and have wondered what it would yield, the answer starts with the district it sits in and how the ordinance reads today, not with what a builder offers for it.

An agenda item is an application, not an approval. Lot counts, acreage and hearing date are as filed and can change. Written by Justin Kelly, NJ Real Estate Broker-Salesperson, from the Moorestown Township Planning Board agenda.