The Evesham amended affordable housing plan would make it possible to build 84 multi-family units on the site above at Route 73 and Dutch Road. Of the total, 17 would be affordable. The plan previously was wrong and included part of the property owned by the homeowner to the right on Dutch Road.
Evesham resident Patrick Lind was surprised to learn that the Township was including part of his home's property as a potential site for an apartment complex that would offer affordable housing.
"You mistakenly put our property on your map," Lind told members of the Planning Board on Thursday who were considering a change to the Township affordable housing plan.
The housing plan, which lists sites where apartments could be built to help the Township meet its affordable housing commitment, included land at Route 73 and Dutch Road, but also added a lot owned by Lind.
70and73.com on Tuesday reported on the Township plans.
Lind's Dutch Road lot is next to the lot containing his home and was given to his mother as a wedding gift about 70 years ago, he told the board.
"How come I wasn't notified that my address was being put on the map?" he asked. "We're calling it a mistake, but the bottom line is that you're proposing to rezone my private property and you didn't even give me a letter in the mail."
As part of the affordable housing plan, the board is recommending a change in zoning in the Master Plan that makes multi-family housing permissible at Route 73 and Dutch Road. The plan says a developer could propose as many as 84 total units on the land, with 17 of them designated affordable.
"There was a little bit of an error on that particular site," Township affordable housing planner Christopher Dochney of Camden-based CME Associates acknowledged at the meeting.
He said the Lind property was being removed and only the lot at Dutch Road and Route 73 would be included.
A developer received Township permission in 2020 to build a senior-living facility on the site, but dropped plans.
"They decided they are no longer interested in pursuing that project. They backed out," Dochney explained.
Like other municipalities, Evesham must list land that could potentially be developed with housing that would include a percentage designated as affordable. However, much of the land in town is protected open space, subject to wetlands restrictions or blocked from development for other reasons.
The board agreed that the housing plan needed to be amended to include the site. Public hearings and a final decision will be before the Township Council at a future meeting.
Planner Dochney acknowledged that the traffic impact of an apartment project on the area likely would be greater than the impact of a senior living facility.
"I don't understand how this parcel of land was picked," Evesham resident Kaleen Vonkamen told the board. She lives on Hampton Lane in a development off Dutch Road near the property.
Vonkamen said 84 units had a potential of adding 160 cars to the traffic around the site.
"It's making the drivability and safety of that corner so dire," she said of the Route 73 intersection. "This is an accident waiting to happen."
Lind, the property owner next to the site, agreed.
"It's an absolute nightmare traffic wise," he said. "You're proposing multi-family (apartments) on a site which can't handle the traffic."
Joseph Hickey, who lives on Peyton Court in the same development as Vonkamen asked the board: "Is there any concern for our property values?"
He said drivers on Dutch Road approaching Route 73 frequently "gun it."
