Voorhees approves 60 affordable apartments
on the Laurel Oak parking lot.

Voorhees Township's Planning Board has approved preliminary and final major site plan for a 60-apartment community on part of the parking lot behind the Ritz and AMC theater, off Laurel Oak Road at Berlin Road. The vote was 5 to 0, with none against. The applicant is Voorhees Family Apartments, LLC, which the minutes describe as a special purpose company owned by principals of the Walters Group, an affordable housing developer.

The plan is two buildings of three stories, 30 apartments in each, and every one of the 60 is income restricted. These are rentals; counsel told the board the developer has never sold any of its units.

The part worth noticing is how little argument there was. The township had already done the zoning: one ordinance created an affordable housing overlay for this site and another adopted the Laurel Oak Redevelopment Plan, and a development agreement between the township and the developer was signed in March. Counsel described the application as by and large a by right one. A plan written to zoning a town has already adopted is a different kind of application from one asking for relief, and it moves at a different speed.

It is not finished. The approval carries conditions and design waivers, hydrant placement was left to be worked out with the fire marshal, and no memorializing resolution appears in this record. The financing is its own step: the developer still had to file for state housing tax credits, and municipal approval was what allowed that filing to happen at all. Nothing about rents, unit sizes, or a construction date is public at this stage.

Site plan approval carries conditions, and no memorializing resolution appears in this record. Financing had not been secured when this was written. Written by Justin Kelly, NJ Real Estate Broker-Salesperson, from the Voorhees Township Planning Board minutes.