Evesham Township is trying to assume control and management of Main Street and Maple Avenue from Burlington County, and now the township has also decided to analyze whether that area is in need of redevelopment or rehabilitation.
Council recently gave Township Solicitor John Gillespie and Director of Community Development Nancy Jamanow the go-ahead to see if the roads should be considered for redevelopment or rehabilitation and present their findings at a future meeting.
Gillespie said there are two main differences between declaring an area in need of rehabilitation versus redevelopment.
First, the statute defining whether an area is in need of rehabilitation is slightly more flexible than that of defining an area in need of redevelopment, and second, the municipality has access to eminent domain as a legislative tool if an area is in need of redevelopment.
“The general arsenal of tools available to you to effectuate improvements are pretty much the same but for condemnation,” Gillespie said. “Under rehabilitation, you do not have the authority to use eminent domain.”
According to Gillespie, another difference is the process council would have to follow once it decides to pursue a designation in either direction.
With rehabilitation, council would have to adopt a resolution outlining the reasons why it believes an area is in need of rehabilitation. That resolution would go to the township planning board, which would have 45 days to review it.
In those 45 days, the planning board would recommend to council that it agrees or disagrees with the resolution, or the board could add to it.
Afterward council could adopt the resolution, officially designating the area in need of rehabilitation.
However, if council believes an area is in need of redevelopment, it would adopt a resolution referring it to the planning board, at which time the planning board would conduct its own study as to whether the area qualifies.
Deputy Mayor Ken D’Andrea said since the township was trying to assume control of Main and Maple, it would be a good time to see if the entire area could be designated for rehabilitation or redevelopment, as opposed to just looking at specific lots one by one.
“You got to look at this whole thing holistically because that’s what we’re talking about,” D’Andrea said. “We talk about the roads we’re looking to take over management of from the county, and we want to mimic that in the rehabilitation zone.”
Councilmember Robert DiEnna said he would like to keep the idea of making Main Street and Maple Avenue “walkable” in mind whenever discussing the roads in the future.
“A word that I’m fond of that I’ve heard others use also is ‘walkable,’ that we keep in mind to the best of our ability to the extent that we can physically make all these, conduct all these chats, all these discussions, with that in mind,” DiEnna said. “That we would always do as much as we can to make the downtown, and anything that is connected in the future, walkable.”
Councilmember Debbie Hackman echoed DiEnna’s sentiments.
“I think that should be our goal, not just to preserve the beauty and the history of this town and the downtown area, but to make an admissible downtown area, and we hope that this will add to that and help with it,” Hackman said.
Gillespie said walkability has been and would continue to be in mind when looking at the roads.
“The idea of walkability is implicit in everything, and frankly, in a couple areas, it’s very explicit, and this is absolutely going to be an explicit underpinning of this designation,” Gillespie said. “No doubt about it.”
