Commissioner Itir Cole and others cut the ribbon on April 25 for The Place at Haddonfield, a complex behind borough hall with 20 affordable units.
Half of the units are already occupied at the complex, which consists of two, three-story buildings with four one-bedroom apartments, 10 two-bedroom units and six three-bedrooms. Monthly rents range from $798 to $1,328 a month, depending on income level; the threshold is $41,800 for a single earner and $69,300 for a family of six.
Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis. By the time of the ribbon cutting, there were more than 4,000 applicants. The borough was awarded a $4.7-million grant for the complex in 2021 and a groundbreaking was held three years later.
While the borough initially expected to build 28 affordable units under the third-round requirement of the Fair Share Housing Act, it brought the number down to 20 and scattered the remaining eight across town.
Theresa Reed is the executive vice president of Community Investment Strategies (CIS), a Lawrenceville company that designs and manages affordable-housing and other communities and worked on the borough project.
“I mean look at this, it’s beautiful,” she remarked. “It fits right in. And some people call it a small property. I like to say it’s small but mighty. Because while it might be only 20 units, it’s 20 places where people can call it home. And that’s what we’re here to do.”
Accordig to Reed, The Place at Haddonfield came in at $6.7 million, $5.8 million from the state, $700,000 from the borough and the rest from CIS. The borough donated the land for the project, the state paid 90% of the cost and CIS accounted for the remaining 10%.
The project initially got pushback from the borough’s Historic Preservation Commission because the property is in a historic district, according to Reed. That meant CIS had to perform two archeological digs that failed to produce anything relevant and delayed the project by months.
The commission voted on the project in 2021 and unanimously denied it, claiming the complex wouldn’t benefit the residents on nearby streets or its own residents due to a lack of green space or places for children to play.
Former mayor and county commissioner member Colleen Bianco Bezich recalled experiencing financial insecurity as a child and acknowledged that the new complex will benefit those in similar situations.
“When I look at these places, when I look at these homes, this is my heart,” she noted. “And this is where we will welcome hundreds of community members over the years. Twenty units is no small thing. We did need special financing to make these 20 units happen.”
Janel Winter, director of housing and community resources at the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA), wants people from across New Jersey to see the development it helped build.
“I would love to be able to bring people from all over the state to see this, and perhaps I will, to see this project,” she related. “And to see how it can really fit into the community. How it can do what it needs to do for the people who live here while bringing a great benefit to the town as a whole.”
Winter said that while DCA is currently unsure if Haddonfield will apply for more affordable housing, it would work with the borough again.
“We would be very happy to see more affordable housing here and to bring funding to it,” she pointed out. “This is exactly the type of project that we look forward to. They did a great job. It fits in really well with the community and their housing community residents and workers for the community.
“So we stand ready, for as much as Haddonfield wants to build, we’d like to be a part of.”
Winter said limiting the complex to 20 units is a reflection of its location.
“At kind of the 24, 25 units size, you’re going to be able to fit that into most communities,” she said. “It’s enough units that it’s more cost efficient. And you’re going to be able to bring in people here who will have a community here in the building themselves, but it’s also not so large that it seems like it’s outside the township community.”
At the Victory Commons in Voorhees, the county just cut the ribbon on 81 affordable units that cost about $30 million. Of DCA’s 39 other affordable state projects, The Place at Haddonfield is the only one in the county and the smallest. Most of its other properties have between 80 and 150 units.
Commissioner Itir Cole (left to right); county Commissioner Colleen Bianco Bezich, Theresa Reed, executive vice president at Community Investment Strategies; Janel Winter, director of housing and community resources at the state Department of Community Affairs; and Esme Devenney, a senior staff attorney at the Fair Share Housing Center, cut the ribbon to celebrate The Place at Haddonfield behind borough hall.
