The yellow line shows the stretch of Camden Avenue, from Revere Avenue to the Maple Shade line, that the Township Council declared an Area in Need of Rehabilitation.
The Moorestown Township Council on Monday evening is set to designate two areas in town — including a stretch of Camden Avenue — as Areas in Need of Rehabilitation.
Under state law, a rehabilitation determination focuses a municipality's redevelopment efforts on specific properties and may include long-term tax abatements for improvements by owners. Each area was reviewed by the Planning Board at this month's meeting.
One area includes properties on each side of a less-than-one-mile length of Camden Avenue from Revere Avenue in the east to the Maple Shade border in the west. The 33.25 acres contain 67 properties.
Another area up for consideration on Monday is a residential property of less than an acre at South Church Street and Fellowship Road, just south of Route 38.
The vacant home at 428 South Church Street, a property that is the target of an Area in Need of Rehabilitation declaration by Township Council.
That property includes a vacant, 152-year-old house that "despite the age of the residence, it has no historic significance and is not listed on the state or federal historic" registers, according to a report prepared for the Township by the Red Bank community planning consulting firm of Heyer, Gruel & Associates.
Each of the properties designated as an "Area in Need of Rehabilitation" fulfills two of the six criteria under state law: more than half of the housing stock must be at least 50 years old and a "pattern of vacancy, abandonment or underutilization" exists, according to Council's two resolutions.
"A program of rehabilitation consisting of extensive repair, reconstruction or renovation of the existing (property) structures, with or without new construction or the enlargement of existing structures, would help to eliminate substandard conditions, prevent further deterioration, and promote the overall redevelopment" according to the resolution for each area.
The colored area of the map shows the properties in the Area in Need of Rehabilitation in the Camden Avenue corridor.
In the Camden Avenue corridor, about 90 percent of the housing is at least 50 years old and about half was built before 1925, according to the Heyer, Gruel & Associates report. The area includes 25 residential properties, 30 commercial properties and 12 that are either vacant or publicly owned.
The property at 428 South Church Street appears to be vacant, the consultant's report noted. Owners partly rehabbed it after buying it in March 2021, but it was sold again in April 2023, according to the report.
Council meets at 7 p.m. More information is available here.
