The property that was rezoned by Evesham Township Council to permit multi-family construction.
Despite residents' objections, a zoning change allowing apartments on a Route 73 property at a busy intersection was approved last week by Evesham Township Council.
Council members — eager to find open land for Evesham's affordable housing commitment — voted unanimously for special overlay zoning for the property at Dutch Road and northbound Route 73.
No developer has surfaced to build apartments on the land, said Township affordable housing planner Christopher Dochney of Camden-based CME Associates. The latest affordable housing plan, due this month, says a developer could propose as many as 84 total units on the land, with 17 of them designated affordable.
"The primary reason is it's been in the (affordable housing) plan for a long time," Dochney said of the property, explaining the rationale behind the zoning change. "It would just be changing from assisted living to a general multifamily." The planner said the current owners are believed to be marketing the property.Â
The Township in 2020 approved a senior-living facility on the site, but that project fell through.
Apartments, a more intensive use than senior housing, now are a permissible use for the property in the Township Master Plan under the change last week. As a permissible use, the Planning Board would find it difficult to turn down an apartment development at the intersection even if residents once again protested.
Residents who live in the neighborhood on Dutch Road near the site objected when the Planning Board held a public hearing in February on the change and then unanimously recommended it to the Council.
Traffic on Dutch Road, in essence a two-lane rural road, has been an ongoing issue.
Council on February 11 adopted a law reducing the speed limit to 25 miles per hour from 35 on the one-mile stretch of Dutch Road from Tomlinson Mill Road to Route 73. The new limit became official in late February, and the Council said it planned a 90-day educational campaign to let the public know of the lower limit.
 Kaleen Vonkamen, who lives on Hampton Lane in the neighborhood off Dutch Road next to the rezoned property, testified at the Planning Board hearing on the zoning change and last week urged Council members not to make a change.
"I think that this application does not fit this property use and that's why I'm here," Vonkamen told Council. "We've been here 30 years, and I just think that there needs to be...some consideration to some of the residents that have been here a long time while Marlton was being developed."
Vonkamen expressed concerns over traffic on both Dutch Road and Route 73 near the property, saying an apartment complex would make it unsafe to drive.
