Egg Harbor Township hopes to stop a controversial affordable housing plan

I thought that the Gadfly readers might want to see this story in today’s Press, which is excerpted below. It is similar to what we in Mullica recently went through when the township officials were foolishly spending our money to try to rezone a part of Elwood Village to six housing units per acre, which undoubtedly would have resulted in an affordable housing complex in Mullica.

Ironically, just as EHT’s officials previously saw no environmental impact to build a park, neither did Mullica’s when they wanted to constrict the Elwood Corridor to help out a private landowner. Now that EHT voters are up in arms about the proposed development, the township suddenly finds itself claiming that it would hurt an endangered species, when it didn’t seem to matter to them before.

Let this story be a lesson for us in Mullica. We have to be vigilant about any changes to our zoning that our township might make or we could end up just like EHT.

One commenter to the Press article wrote, “I hope that they find that bird; has anyone seen the traffic recently?”

Anonymous

Now Egg Harbor Township hopes endangered species stop a controversial affordable housing plan

In December, the Egg Harbor Township Committee declined to adopt a proposed settlement that would permit as many as 572 housing units, 114 of which would be designated as affordable, creating a density of six units per acre. The property currently is zoned for a housing density of one unit per one to three acres. Committee members made their decision after about 400 residents packed the municipal hall to protest the settlement during a public hearing.
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Around that time, the township claimed in court filings that a wildlife biologist it hired had conducted a preliminary survey of the property and found potential habitat for red-headed woodpeckers, a bird that New Jersey has listed as a threatened species.
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Plackter argued in response that when Tony Canale Park was expanded a few years ago, the township did not find any threatened or endangered species on that tract and his client's property abuts that section of the park. "How could the issue of this T&E habitat be raised now when the township sought to acquire the English Creek property for an expansion of Canale Park," Plackter wrote. Additionally, he said, the changes that could be required if woodpeckers or other species were found "do not rise to the level of rendering the English Creek site no longer appropriate or suitable for affordable housing."