SPRINGFIELD TWP. – Local officials are celebrating a recent court victory over one of the nation’s largest housing developers, a victory that keeps intact one of the most rural, sparsely populated and heavily agricultural areas in New Jersey.
Builder DR Horton Inc. is under contract to purchase the Van Wagoner family farm, approximately 286 acres on either side of Arney’s Mount-Birmingham Road. It wants to build almost 400 homes, 15 percent of which are intended as ‘affordable’ homes and the rest as market-rate housing.
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Apart from owners looking to sell, the property is a poor candidate for housing when weighed under local, state and national planning policies. The biggest shortcomings are a country road with two lanes for access; proximity to other farms and open spaces, such as the provincial park; no public transport nearby; and a lack of water or sewerage facilities, with only remote connection options.
“We made a good decision in court,” Mayor David Frank said last week. “We are very grateful for this decision. …. But it was also, I think, a good decision for the idea of land conservation. The idea of good planning.”
Springfield is now waiting to see if Dr. Horton will appeal.
In state court, housing claims have an advantage over farms and open space
Affordable housing, farmland preservation, and open space preservation are all top priorities in New Jersey’s pantheon of public policy. Affordable housing is receiving special attention because the state Supreme Court decided in its “Mount Laurel cases” that the obligation to provide housing has roots in the state Constitution.
“I think they (judges) tried in the best possible way to combat nasty discrimination that was largely based on race,” said Frank, an attorney who handles land use cases. “I think to a large extent they used economic status as a proxy for that. I’m not going to say they were wrong in trying to fight that battle.”
Frank said the problems are that the courts are not well suited to managing affordable housing implementation and that subsequent state legislation sets complex rules that have also changed over time.
“Where we are now is that the processes for determining your obligation and for determining how you’re going to implement it, at least theoretically, are largely dependent on how you fall within the State Plan (development and redevelopment plans),” Frank said.
In Springfield’s case, that state plan classifies it as completely rural and environmentally sensitive. Any high-density development should only take place in officially designated areas, ‘centres’, where the municipality and other authorities plan to invest in sewerage, water and other infrastructure.
The municipality has a largely agricultural-based economy. The land is about 75 percent occupied by farms, many of which have been preserved, and open space, the result of decades of planning decisions and expenditures.
Springfield wins the court because he also advocates good planning
The long legal battle played out for about two years in Burlington County Superior Court before Assignment Judge Jeanne Covert.
The court file shows that DR Horton initially proposed 1,540 housing units. The mix would consist of single-family homes for “active adults,” traditional single-family homes, townhomes and 96 affordable apartments.
Today, Frank said, Springfield has only 1,100 to 1,150 homes. Over the past two decades, there has been a net increase of about 23 homes built, he said.
DR Horton lowered its target to 662 in a proposal submitted in March 2022 as site restrictions became clearer. That dropped to 389 units in December 2023.
Covert made it clear that she was angry about the timing of that last review, just before the trial, but she allowed the case to proceed. Company attorneys did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
On March 7, Covert issued an opinion in favor of Springfield.
Covert argued that the municipality, as Horton argued but Springfield denied, has a constitutional obligation to meet its fair share of the regional need for affordable housing. And even extraordinary efforts to preserve farms and open space do not negate that obligation, the judge wrote.
Covert, however, agreed with Springfield that Horton had selected a location that was clearly unsuitable for housing in almost every respect. Even playing around with affordable housing legislation wouldn’t overcome the shortcomings, she wrote.
“This project takes proper planning and turns it on its head, along with a demonstrated and overt lack of care for the future residents of this community,” Covert wrote.
Joe Smith is a NE Philly resident transplanted to South Jersey 36 years ago and now keeps an eye on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill and the Burlington County Times. Do you have a tip? Support local journalism with a subscription.
This article originally appeared on the Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Springfield Township wins lawsuit against DR Horton developer
