While many towns struggle to meet round three goals required by the state’s 1975 Mount Laurel Doctrine, the borough has fulfilled its obligation with the opening of The Cove At Palmyra apartment complex last year.
“All the 102 units are affordable and they are all rented, fully satisfying the Council on Affordable Housing’s requirements,” said Borough Administrator John Gural, adding that the Brownfields project took 23 years to complete.
“It feels great.”
“It took great persistence,” added Mayor Gina Ragomo Tait, who praised the efforts of Gural, Solicitor Ted Rosensberg, grants planner Dave Gerkens, environmental engineer John Hogue and redeveloper Andrew Brenner.
“It was a Brownfields site and we had to work with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to clean it up before anything could be done,” Gural explained. “There was a dump back there, and we even found live ammunition.”
The large parcel of land south of the Tacony Palmyra Bridge along Route 73 was undeveloped in the 1960s except for a series of gas stations and truck and car repair shops. It was used as an illegal dumping site by contractors and as a place where teens rode mini-bikes and dune buggies.
Things began to change in 2003, with the opening of the Environmental Learning Center at the Palmyra Cove Nature Park, with its 250 acres of outdoor wildlife, nature trails, wetlands, meadows and a beach along the Delaware River. The same year, Palmyra decided to redevelop the land abutting the park, including the Cove At Palmyra and two 800,000-square-foot warehouses that pay $1 million each in local taxes every year.
“We used to get $50,000 in taxes for the property before that.” Gural noted with a smile.
As for more affordable housing in the future, Tait said council is in the process of having a property at Spring Garden Street and Public Road declared an area in need of redevelopment. Previous tenants were Roto Cylinders and Armotek.
Plans call for building a 22-unit affordable-housing complex over the next few years that “would satisfy COAH’s (Council on Affordable Housing) round four requirements,” explained Tait, who was recently in Chicago to receive the DEP’s Phoenix Award for successful Brownfields projects.
As for The Cove At Palmyra residents, the mayor regularly hears how happy they are to live at an affordable price.
For round four, every municipality in the state had to file resolutions adopting affordable-housing numbers by Jan. 31, 2025, and had to submit plans by June 30 of the same year, which Palmyra has done.
Under the Mount Laurel Doctrine, municipalities are required to have at least 20% of affordable housing in developments with more than 30 units. They must be affordable to households with incomes at or below 80% of the median family income for the region, with a minimum 13% of units reserved for very low-income households.
Municipalities must also adhere to Uniform Housing Affordability Controls regarding rentals, prices and affirmative marketing.
Palmyra is ahead of the curve, Gural and Tait enthused. They are also happy for a very healthy housing market, with homes for sale going fast.
“We have a wonderful town,” Tait observed, “and will work to keep making it better.”
The Cove At Palmyra has 102 affordable-housing apartments, the result of a Brownfields project that has satisfied the borough’s requirements under state law.
