Voorhees board votes 5 to 0 against
a 77-home redevelopment plan.

Voorhees Township's Planning Board has voted 5 to 0 to find the Carriage House redevelopment plan inconsistent with the Township Master Plan. The plan would allow a maximum of 77 new age-restricted dwelling units on a site that today holds the former Carriage House restaurant and some single family homes, roughly three quarters of a mile from the Lindenwold PATCO station.

What the vote is not is a denial. The board's role here is advisory: as the board's own solicitor explained at the meeting, Township Committee can revise the plan or move forward with it anyway, because the finding is only a recommendation and the Planning Board has no veto over the committee on density. The redevelopment plan is the start of the process rather than the end of it, and the 77 units could only be proposed later, in a site plan application that would still need clearance from state and other outside agencies.

The reasons given on the record were environmental concerns about the site, the density itself, a need for more information from the township planner, and the fact that the review had run past the application's completeness deadline. The underlying zoning is the township's Office Retail Business zone, which permits commercial and office uses, and the minutes note the property had never been zoned as environmentally sensitive.

For anyone following new construction in Camden County, this is a useful illustration of where the decisions actually get made. A planning board consistency vote is the loudest public moment in a redevelopment process and the least binding one. The vote that sets density is the governing body's.

A consistency finding is a recommendation, not an approval or a denial. Township Committee can revise the plan or adopt it as written. Written by Justin Kelly, NJ Real Estate Broker-Salesperson, from the Voorhees Township Planning Board minutes.