Commissioners Schedule a Hearing on Public Purchase of Bancroft

The borough Board of Commissioners have scheduled a special hearing on Sept. 27 to explore how much a municipal plan to buy the Bancroft property could cost. The hearing will be held during the commissioners' regular meeting at 7:30 p.m. that day at the Municipal Hall.

The commissioners, the highest elected borough officials, are taking a closer look at the public plan to buy Bancroft after previously favoring a plan to build an assisted-care housing development for the elderly. 

The 18.7-acre Bancroft property on Kings Highway East is viewed as an oasis in this nearly 400-year-old, 2.5-square-mile town. Dueling views of how to redevelop Bancroft have stretched out a decision on how to proceed for more than a decade. More tax revenue or more recreation fields and open space have been the issue. 

The property has been owned for the last 128 years by an institution established by Margaret Bancroft to rehabilitate people with developmental disabilities. Bancroft today is a national leader in treatments for brain injuries. Officials there need to upgrade facilities and have leaned toward selling its property in Haddonfield and relocating to do that.

Bancroft, a nonprofit, currently pays no municipal taxes. 

The typical Haddonfield property tax bill is $12,000 yearly for a property assessed at the borough average of $491,000. It's one of the most expensive tax bills in the state, a borough official recently said. 

Haddonfield’s average property tax of $12,088.88 is nearly twice the state average at $7.776, according to the state Department of Community Affairs. Haddonfield has the second highest average property tax bill in Camden County. It trails Tavistock, an exclusive enclave at the tip of Haddonfield, enclosed mostly in an exclusive golf course. Haddonfield property taxes are 27 percent higher than Voorhees, $8,777. 41, third in the county. 

A public plan to buy Bancroft could cost as much as $15 million, which is what Bancroft officials think their property is worth. The borough places its value at closer to $12 million. Privately, some local officials estimate that a plan to augment neighboring with additional athletic fields for school and public use and build a new library and learning center for school and borough use, could costs as much as $30 million.

The public-purchase plan the commissioners will consider on Sept. 27 includes the fields, library and open-space preservation on the land, which is adjacent to the Cooper River Park owned by Camden County. Two other development plans currently being considered are for residential development of two-bedroom townhouses or independent-living senior housing.

Janet Hallahan, of Hopkins Lane, near Bancroft, told commissioners she was against the public purchase of the land. Hallahan said more athletic fields near her home would be a hardship for her and her neighbors.

"There's a lot of people who don't benefit from those fields," Hallahan said during a commissioner's work session Tuesday. "The impact on my neighborhood from having a turf field there is not a good thing. You're not looking at what the impact on our side of town is going to be, which has been the issue all along. The traffic is going to be a nightmare for us."

Ed McManimon, the borough's redevelopment attorney, said the meeting on Sept. 27 is just a "starting point."

"You'll never get anywhere unless you figure out some model," he said. "At least we'll know what the cost is."