The Voorhees Township Committee held its regularly scheduled meeting Monday, Aug. 12, which included passage on first reading of an ordinance adopting certain amendments to the Redevelopment Plan for the Voorhees Town Center.
As Township Administrator Larry Spellman explained after the meeting, the ordinance deals with potential additional townhomes to be added at the location by Brandywine Acquisition and Financial, LLC.
The Sun previously reported the deal currently agreed upon by the township and Brandywine calls for 180 townhomes to be constructed at the Voorhees Town Center as part of the redevelopment plan.
Spellman explained a portion of those townhomes must be assigned as low- and moderate-income housing, as per regulations set forth by the Council on Affordable Housing. In lieu of such, however, Spellman says there is another way to deal with the issue.
“There is a provision that says [Brandywine] is able to pay the township in lieu of that, and those funds go to out COAH funds, and we will use those to locate COAH homes elsewhere,” said Spellman.
As the resolution states, “the redeveloper is responsible for paying any Affordable Housing Impact fee pursuant to Voorhees Township Ordinance 153.028 generated by the redevelopment activities in the redevelopment area.”
Currently, township officials indicate the sale is still not yet official, therefore no meetings have been planned with the planning board regarding future redevelopment.
During committee comment, Deputy Mayor Michelle Nocito stated her support of a state law she heard is being discussed that would allow campaign funds to be used for childcare while parents follow their campaign responsibilities.
“Myself as a female and Mr. Ravitz as a single dad, we certainly saw the challenges of trying to run a campaign with competing priorities as a family, so I just wanted to say that I support that,” said Nocito. “I think expanding campaign finance rules to apply to single parents and working mothers would open up the opportunity for us to see a more diverse pool of candidates and I think that’s something we could benefit from statewide.”
Meanwhile, Ravitz commended the Voorhees Township Police Department for its work last week when the building was visited by a group of people recording their interactions with township police, which they later uploaded to YouTube.
“I wanted to commend the officers involved and the associates that work in the Records Department for keeping their cool and dealing with it as best that they humanly possibly could,” said Ravitz.
In other news:
- The township established an extension of the third quarter grace period for taxes, due to the township receiving the county tax rate late.
- Committee approved purchases through state contract for multiple vehicles to be used by the public works department.
