Haddonfield BOE and Commissioners Schedule Bancroft Purchase Meeting

The Haddonfield Board of Education will hold a joint meeting with borough commissoners on Monday, Feb. 6 to discuss its proposal for the purchase of the Bancroft property, Superintendent Richard Perry said Friday.

The meeting will be held in the all-purpose room at the Central School at 7 p.m. and is open to the public.

Several borough commissioners have expressed concerns about the cost of an estimated $24 million school-board plan to purchase and develop the Bancroft property on Kings Highway East.

Commissioner Ed Borden said he thought the school board's two-phase development plan was flawed.

"The idea of spending $17 million, without a learning center and no plan for the east side of the property, is not a good idea," Borden said in November. "There are serious holes in the plan. It doesn't address affordable housing and ignores construction and legal costs.

"Who thinks, in any universe, the state will have millions of dollars to give to Haddonfield?" Borden asked, when told school officials had discussed finding funds from the state Department of Education for some of the construction.

The school plan is for an initial cost of $17.6 million for acquisition and demolition at Bancroft and the installation of two turf athletic fields. School officials also estimated a public referendum on their plan wouldn't likely occur before next September.

Borden and the two other commissioners, the highest elected officials in the borough, are charged with choosing from among three development plans for the 18.7-acre Bancroft property on Kings Highway East adjacent to the high school. The three options include a public purchase of the entire property, or two mixed-use proposals that would add a turf field and additional parking on the west side of the property from Hopkins Lane and develop housing on the east side. The housing options are either 50 market-rate townhouses and 10 affordable housing units, or 120 age-restricted condo units on the east side and 10 affordable-housing units on the west side.

Borden said market-rate housing and the use of the west side of Hopkins Lane for school development looks like an attractive plan. Some additional athletic fields and open space, including walking trails, are included in all of the development options.

The borough rolled out a cost estimate for a public purchase in September. It estimated a cost of $19.52 million total cost, with $14.27 million to be financed. It also estimated $5.25 million in state and county open-space grants and money from a local open-space tax fund.