Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
With very little comment, the Hopewell Township Planning Board agreed to designate a 22-acre parcel on Federal City Road, near the Lawrence Township border, as “an area in need of redevelopment.”
The property, located on Federal City Road next to the ramp for I-95, had been used over the years as a farm market and garden center – most recently, the Oasis Garden Center.
But the garden center went out of business. All that remains is a single-family house, plus several outbuildings that were used by the garden center. Part of the property is still being used by a landscaping contractor for storage.
The planning board’s recommendation will be sent back to the township committee, which had asked the board to consider whether the property, known informally as the Klockner property, qualified as an area in need of redevelopment.
The Klockner property is one of several properties that township committee has asked the planning board to review as potentially in need of redevelopment.
Last week, planning consultant Frank Banisch presented his report, which recommended designating the Klockner property as an area in need of redevelopment.
Banisch wrote in his report that because the Klockner property is situated at the entrance ramp to I-95 and across Federal City Road from a strip of non-residential uses in Lawrence Township, “the likelihood of development for the permitted single-family residential uses is limited.”
“This report does not recommend any plan or strategy for the use of, or modifications to, the property,” Banisch wrote. It would be up to township committee to rezone the land and to prepare a redevelopment plan for it.
State law allows for a town to engage in redevelopment of properties by declaring – and including – them in “an area in need of redevelopment.”
It also allows for the acquisition of land through condemnation proceedings, although township committee made it clear that condemnation is not part of the plan for the Klockner property.
The state redevelopment law also permits a town to partner with developers and to “refine land use policies and development regulations to promote desired redevelopment.”
A town may qualify for bonus credits to be applied toward its fair share obligation to provide affordable housing if those units are built on a property that has bee deemed an area in need of redevelopment, Banish wrote.
Although the term “an area in need of redevelopment” is generally associated with urban renewal, state law has been modified to include land that is not defined as “blighted.”
State law has expanded the definition to include an area that “may include land, buildings or improvements which of themselves are not detrimental to public health, safety or welfare, but the inclusion of which is necessary – with or without change in their condition – for the effective redevelopment of an area of which they are a part,” Banisch wrote.
The planning consultant also wrote that a property can be determined to be “an area in need of redevelopment” if at least one of several criteria are met. The planning board decided, after reading Banisch’s report, that the Klockner property met several of the criteria.
Among those criteria is “unimproved vacant land that has remained so” for several years, Banisch wrote.
The Klockner property has been vacant for decades.
The Klockner property also met the criteria of having “obsolete layout or other factors (that) are detrimental to the safety, health, morals or welfare of the community,” he wrote. Many of the buildings on the property are in poor condition.
Banisch also wrote that the property has been used as a construction yard for landscapers, which has generated objections from neighbors because of the traffic, noise and on-site storage of materials and waste from construction sites.
Another criterion that has been met is “a growing lack of proper utilization of the land.”
Banisch wrote that the buildings left behind after the abandonment of the farm market and garden center are not easily adapted to permitted uses – such as residential use – and would have to be removed to make way for a productive use of the site.
One member of the public agreed, pointing out that there have been several garden centers on the property, and all have failed.
