Pine Hill clears 138 age-restricted apartments
and two warehouses on Cross Keys Road

The Borough of Pine Hill's zoning board has granted major subdivision approval and preliminary and final major site plan approval for 141 Berlin-Cross Keys Road, a mostly undeveloped property in the borough's GBD district. The board adopted the resolution at its May 14 meeting, closing out an application it had heard in detail on April 9 under the name Tides of Pine Hill.

The front of the site, along Berlin-Cross Keys Road, is two four story residential buildings holding 138 apartments between them, 68 in one and 70 in the other. The engineer's testimony put the count at 138 and the applicant's attorney described the buildings as deed restricted for senior residents, which is the use the board had granted a variance for in the earlier half of the same application. The ordinance called for 261 parking spaces on the residential side and the plan shows 263.

The rear of the site is two warehouses. The larger, set farthest back, is 119,140 square feet with 8,500 square feet of office and 17 loading docks; the second, closer to the road, is 93,500 square feet with 11,500 square feet of office and 16 loading docks. The subdivision that came with the approval splits the two uses onto two lots, with a cross access easement so the warehouse lot can still reach Berlin-Cross Keys Road. Access also comes off Lake Tahoe Boulevard, which exists today as a paper right of way and would be built as a roadway with the project.

The ground itself is largely open. The engineer described wooded areas and high tension lines behind the property, single family homes to the north, a car wash and a site already under construction to the northeast, and the remains of an abandoned single family development on the property, curbing and old water and sewer, all of it to be removed. A pond at the northwest corner drains toward the South Branch of Big Timber Creek.

For a landowner, the useful part is what stage this is. Preliminary and final site plan approval, taken together with a subdivision, is the last sign-off the board gives; what follows is outside agency work rather than another hearing in front of neighbors. At the April hearing the applicant had submitted for a wetlands letter of interpretation, a NJDEP flood hazard verification, a Camden County Planning Board review and a Conrail crossing, none of which were in hand yet. Ground on a corridor tends to get looked at differently once the parcel beside it has cleared its board.

Site plan approvals carry conditions, and several outside agency approvals were still outstanding when the board adopted the resolution. Unit counts and building sizes are as testified to the board. Written by Justin Kelly, NJ Real Estate Broker-Salesperson, from the Pine Hill Zoning Board minutes.