Community Corner

New Bancroft Options Do Not Include Nursing Home

Options for the redevelopment of Bancroft do not include what opponents labeled as "high density."

One of the main components of an earlier plan for the redevelopment of the 18.7-acre Bancroft property—a continuing care retirement community (CCRC)—is not among three top recommendations planners will present on June 15 at a special meeting of the planning board.

The project's lead planner broke the news to the borough’s three commissioners during a phone conference last month. The commissioners had all endorsed a previous plan to build a CCRC with up to 190 individual units and 75 long-term care beds in a high-rise nursing facility.

That plan, which borough officials said would generate tax revenue, was successfully labeled as “high-density” growth. The commissioners did an about-face amid withering opposition and scrapped the old plan, 10 years into the process.

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The three top development options are now:

  • A public ownership option with the borough and the board of education purchasing the property for active and passive recreation use and public buildings, such as a new library
  • Age-targeted townhouses geared toward “empty-nesters” or “young professionals,” with one to two bedrooms
  •  Senior living units similar to existing developments such as Medford Lees or Cadbury

Phil Caton, the lead planner, said open-space along the Cooper River corridor that borders the property and an additional sports field for the high school can also be included with any of the plans. But the exclusion of the CCRC raised concerns among one commissioner.

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“I didn’t realize that we had concluded for the third option that assisted living would not work,” Commissioner Ed Borden said to Caton. “I thought that was still possible.”

Caton said their plan focused on independent, assisted-care housing and not a hospital-like facility featured as part of the plan scraped last year.

Borden also had not warmed to the public-ownership option presented by the school board. 

"The board of education really had no plan," Borden said. He called it "the hazy concepts the school board has floated."

Commissioner Tish Colombi, the mayor, said she was "intrigued" by the townhouse option.

"We already have multiple options like that around town," Borden countered. "The Mews hasn't sold a unit in two years."

The Trenton planning firm of Clarke, Caton, Hintz was hired in December to fast-track a new development plan for Bancroft, seen by many borough residents as an oasis in a nearly 400-year-old, 2.5-square-mile town. A new plan needs to be in place by the fall to use a $500,000 state open-space grant.  

Haddonfield also has about $500,000 in funds from an open-space tax that is expected to be added to the grant to purchase some part of the Bancroft parcel. The sale price for the property has been reported to be as much as $15 million.

Bancroft is an institution for the developmentally disabled that has occupied this portion of Kings Highway East for the past 127 years. It is bordered by Haddonfield Memorial High School, Kings Highway and the Cooper River corridor. 

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