Neighbors Claim Victory in Affordable Housing Fight

Who says you can't fight City Hall? Certainly not the neighbors in the West Collingswood Extension section of Haddon Township.

Nearly 200 turned out for a raucous meeting with Mayor Randy Teague in late January after word of a plan to build a 52-unit affordable-housing apartment building there surfaced. The budding deal could have transformed an aging auto dealership in foreclosure on the Black Horse Pike and possibly settled a lawsuit by a local housing advocacy group, proponents hoped.

But the neighbors of West Collingswood Extension were having none of it.

"It's something that the group strongly opposed," Teague said Monday of the neighbors. "At this time, it does not appear it's going to go forward."

Teague said he wanted to slow down the process earlier this month. The neighbors wanted to kill it in its tracks. They appear to have won.

"As a community, we have continued to hold meetings to anticipate what could happen and discuss our possible plan of action," community leader Francine Tryka said Monday. "We have a lot of great ideas along with a lot of passion for keeping our community the little gem we think it is."

Teague still plans to meet with the neighbors at the West Collingswood Extension Civic Association building on Lynne Avenue at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday. He will bring the township planner and engineer with him to speak about the virtue of a redevelopment zone for the Black Horse Pike Auto Complex on the Black Horse Pike and Walnut Avenue. That was the plan before news this week that the affordable housing project there was not likely to go forward.

Teague, John Foley and Paul Dougherty, the township's three commissioners, approved a resolution in January to instruct the planning board to consider designating the auto complex a redevelopment zone. That designation would start a process to help determine a suitable use for the property, including incentives to developers, such as a PILOT(payment in lieu of taxes) agreement.

One such developer could have been the Walters Group, which Teague said was exploring buying the property. The group is building an 82-unit, market-rate apartment building near Haddon Avenue in the Westmont section of the township. It's located on the old Russell Cast Stone site behind the Keg & Kitchen restaurant on West Albertson Avenue just off of Haddon Avenue..

The Walters Group is being sued by a local housing advocacy group to include affordable units in the Westmont project. Buying the auto complex site to build affordable-housing could have satisfied the lawsuit from the Fair Share Housing Center, the local housing advocacy group, some hoped.

But now that plan seems to be scrapped.

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