At the latest Washington Township council meeting on September 23, the council unanimously approved a resolution to move forward with a property sale that will be used to create new housing.
The resolution, known as R233-2026, “confirmed the sale of surplus real property” to RiverWards Land Holding, LLC., a Philadelphia-based redevelopment group. The property is “known as Block 53, Lot 1.02, also known as 201 East Holly Avenue.”
It takes up approximately 14 acres of land on the corner of East Holly Avenue and Densten Road. The specific lot that is up for sale is only the 14 acres referred to as 1.02; it is not part of Lot 1 or Lot 1.01, as those are owned separately. It is located next to approximately 56 acres of open space owned by the township. Part of this touches against a fraction of Washington Lake Park, which is 330 acres.
A map of the land that has been brought up for discussion in reference to recently approved resolution 233-2026. Only the yellow portion on the map, which is about 14 acres, is for sale.
The township’s decision to move forward with this sale and residential project is due to the affordable housing obligations the town is required to follow under the fourth round of the New Jersey Fair Housing Act and the Housing Element and Fair Share Plan.
“The state requires us to plan for and set aside 1,287 affordable housing (units). That’s what we’re required to do,” said township planner Jay Petrongolo, while explaining the plan during the public comment section specifically for this resolution.
“We in the municipality pick the individual walk-in lots, where to put them, where to place them, where our options are, and the affordable housing legislation gives us options…There’s a lot of rules binding it all together. There’s criteria for the individual lots. They have to be developable. They can’t be contaminated or anything like that. So we have to plan for where these units will go, and there’s criteria that they have to meet.”
“We looked at vacant parcels within the township; there’s not that many. We pull them all together, and we set aside the parcels spread throughout the township,” he continued. “The state says you can’t put them all in one spot and say, ‘everybody’s got to be over here.’ That’s not the intent. This parcel was one of the parcels that was selected. Frankly, was the last parcel selected that met the criteria that was viable and could be utilized. We had worked with the state to potentially do an adjustment or numbers based on our land capacity that did not work.”
Not all of the housing units built will be affordable housing; however, a percentage of them are required to be. Council said at the meeting that 20% of the final number units will need to be affordable. In New Jersey, affordable housing is defined as residential rental or for-sale units where the occupant spends no more than 30% of their gross household income on housing costs, including utilities
This is a required action the township needed to act on to avoid the state fully deciding where the housing will take place.
There have been many differing opinions over the sale, and many residents have expressed concerns or dissatisfaction with the resolution; a few spoke during the public comment specifically for this resolution, resulting in back-and-forth discussions among the council and commenters.
Many concerns have to do with environmental, historical, economical and safety issues. Despite the feedback, council still passed to approve it unanamously; however, many of the board members expressed their own frustrations and stated they understood what the commenters were concerned about.
Right before the vote, Councilman Jack Yerkes gave a personal story on his own experiences living in Washington Township for decades and seeing its land change and develop over time.
“Every single development that went up was a pasture, a farm, orchard or stand of trees, and we had similar conversations and protests from residents every time a builder wanted to build in Township…If you live in Township, your house is built on some land that was either an orchard, farm, forest and trees. None of us up here want this to happen. Believe me, I live a mile from there. I love that place,” Yerkes said.
He mentioned that “this is painful” for all of the members of council and the township, but said it is “unfortunately beyond (their) control,” since the New Jersey Supreme Court is “dictating (and) legislating this is what must be done, not just in Washington Township, (but in) every community in the state.” He said that council is on the public’s side and that the council has spent “countless hours” prior to this point.
“We are not opposed to you or anyone here. We’re all in this together,” he said. “We’re going to do the best we can, so that we can all live with it and enjoy the beauty of Washington Township.
The next regular council meeting will be on Wednesday, October 14 at 6 p.m. in the Municipal Building.
Councilman Jack Yerkes speaking about resolution 233-2026 before the council approved it at the September 23 council meeting.
