The intersection of Evesham and Springdale Roads, near the ShopRite market, hosts a variety of preserved and protected land. Development rights for the Legacy Club (formerly Woodcrest Country Club) are owned by the Township. Holly Ravine Farm was purchased last year by the Township and Township Council has voted to allow agricultural uses. Springbrook Park is a Township park. Across Evesham Road, which goes from left to right in the middle of the photo, Voorhees Township has forever preserved the Saddlehill Winery property (formerly Stafford Farm) for agriculture and Stafford Woods is a Voorhees park maintained for recreation and open space.
When Cherry Hill was the poster child for booming suburbanization — its population more than doubled between 1960 and 1970 — the focus was on growth.
Now that many of the former farms and woodlands have turned into residential or commercial developments, residents have looked around and asked how to maintain the green.
"We've really reached maximum (development) capacity," said Cherry Hill native and resident Eric Ascalon, who has sent his three children through the Cherry Hill schools.
Ascalon was at the forefront of a fight by residents to save the 23-acre Holly Ravine farm from being developed for senior citizen housing. The Township purchased the farm near Evesham and Springdale roads last year, forever preserving it as open space and possibly permitting an agricultural use again.
"It just seems ridiculous that we would chop one more tree down in Cherry Hill," Ascalon told 70and73.com in an interview. "We've only got so many trees in our community left."
Now the Township is on the verge of adopting a 2025 Open Space & Recreation Plan, a 62-page document on what is open or recreational space and what is on the Township wish list. The New Jersey Green Acres program, which funds open space in municipalities, requires a plan be adopted as part of the Township Master Plan.
The Township Planning Board will consider the draft Open Space plan at its meeting on Monday (February 3) beginning with an open caucus at 7 p.m. and a public meeting at 7:30. Information on how to attend the meeting remotely is available on the Township website.
From Ascalon's point of view, Township government has finally come around to understanding the urgency. Besides looking at open space potential, Cherry Hill Township Council in 2022 adopted a much stricter law about developers cutting trees and paying a Township tree fund when trees are cut and not replaced.
"It's more aggressive than it traditionally has been in the past, which is a good start," Ascalon said of the Township's elected leadership.
Goals in the new open space plan, updating one from 2011, are:
- To preserve open space for preservation, conservation and/or recreation.
- To preserve sensitive land areas through acquisition of environmentally sensitive areas, such as steep slopes, woodlands, aquifer recharge areas, and areas containing unique environmental features.
- To preserve and enhance greenways.
- To improve the existing open space system throughout the Township and provide adequate passive and active recreation opportunities for all ages.
- To improve maintenance and maximize the use of existing active recreation parcels.
- Promote the importance of and maintenance of passive open space parcels.
- To promote health and wellness through active recreation.
- To balance environmental conservation with economic development.
"The primary intent of a municipal Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP) is to identify existing open space and recreation facilities, establish goals and objectives, analyze needs and deficiencies, and provide a guide to conservation, preservation and acquisition of parks and open space, environmentally sensitive lands and greenways," according to the draft.
Excluding roadways, highways and other such infrastructure, about 13,000 acres of land are in the Township. (Cherry Hill is about 24 square miles, or 15,500 acres in total.) Of the 13,000 acres, the Township has preserved 1,372 acres, or about 10.5% of the total.
The draft plan was written by Pennoni Associates, a Philadelphia-based national engineering consulting firm.Â
Two public meetings were held last June and July to collect residents' thoughts and priorities about open space and recreation.
Several properties ranked by several criteria were listed as eventual targets for open space in the draft plan.
"While the Township provides plentiful open space for a population of its size, residents have expressed interest in protecting specific lands that are environmentally sensitive and imminently threatened by development," according to the draft plan.
The top property is the working Springdale Farm on Springdale Road.
The second is land owned by Trustees of the Apostolic Faith on Evans Lane near the Old Orchard neighborhood and the third is the property owned by the Little Servant Sisters of the BVM at 1000 Cropwell Road.
Others on the list:
- Woodland, at Birch and Beechwood avenues behind the Executive Campus
- Knights Field, at 1101-1105 Warren Avenue
- Intersection of Rockhill Road and Garden Avenue, off Route 70
- Old Cuthbert, next to the Cherry Hill Racquet Club
- Off Lakeside Avenue, near the Woodcrest Speedline
- Woodland near Chapel Avenue East and Route 295
- Woodland at Carnegie Plaza and Springdale Road
- Land near the intersection of Kings Highway and Ramble Road
- Franciscan Sisters of the Infant Jesus, 1215 Kresson Road
Ascalon said Cherry Hill should encourage continued development, but do so by focusing developers on disused or underutilized existing properties that already have been developed.Â
Do not reject businesses that want to build, but redevelop the land in the Township that's already paved over and not used to its full potential, he said.
