Hopewell Township officials are hoping that the purchase of a 2.5-acre property contiguous to the Pennytown site will be a final puzzle piece leading to the construction of affordable housing on the township-owned tract.
The Hopewell Township Committee on May 13 approved a $580,000 bond ordinance to fund the purchase of the tract, described as a donut hole in the 28-acre Pennytown site, which is located at the junction of Route 31 and Route 654.
The ordinance was approved by a 4-1 vote, with Mayor Vanessa Sandom, Allen Cannon, Harvey Lester and Michael Markulec voting yes. Committeeman Jim Burd cast the lone no vote.
“This 2.5 acres is situated smack in the middle of the Pennytown property,” Sandom said. “Having this property will facilitate the planning and construction of affordable housing units on the Pennytown site. The consensus of the township committee and planning board at this point is to move forward with 70 affordable housing units on the property.”
The purchase of the tract comes on the heels of a decision in March by township committee to scrap a deal to jointly develop the site with Kooltronic, which owns 76 acres on the other side of Route 654.
Hopewell had purchased the Pennytown site when with the intent of building 70 units of affordable units to help provide for its state-mandated fair share of affordable housing. The township then approached Kooltronic about a joint venture to develop a project encompassing both properties.
The joint plan called for the construction of 350 housing units, 22,000 square feet of commercial space and a community or senior citizen center across the Pennytown and Kooltronic parcels.
Under the plan, 228 residential units would be located on Kooltronic’s land, while the remaining 122 housing units and all the commercial/community space would be built on the Pennytown site. The affordable units would have been scattered throughout the development.
The township committee voted on March 25 to kill deal after officials were unable to reach a deal with Kooltronic.
The Pennytown site is integral to the township’s affordable housing plan. Sandom said that the towship’s current affordable housing obligation calls for 420 affordable units to be constructed by 2020. Currently, Project Freedom on Denow Road accounts for 70 of those units, and the Pennytown project would double that number.
“Pennytown’s location is important for the township because it distributes the affordable housing throughout the township, as opposed to clustering the units exclusively in the southern part of the township, which currently houses all the existing affordable units,” Sandom said.
She adds that Project Freedom has also shown interest in building affordable housing on the Pennytown site. “We expect to enter into meaningful discussions with them and other similar groups in the next couple of weeks.”
