Executive summary of the Livable Community plan for Egg Harbor Township

Drafted by Vollmer Associates

The Livable Community Plan for Egg Harbor Township was developed by citizens of the community in response to their interest in shaping the township’s future.  The specific contents grew out of an extensive series of interviews with a wide range of stakeholders, research and analysis provided by a consultant team and, most importantly, the intensive work of a Visioning Team. 

The Visioning Team convened ten times and followed a process that began with wide ranging discussion about the history and potential future of the township and continued with focused discussions on key topics and policies.  Content was also guided by four major public meetings, several of which were conducted in an interactive workshop format. 

The process that led to this plan was community driven, and its results were guided by local concerns.

This plan has been prepared in response to rapid growth, particularly of residential subdivisions, in Egg Harbor Township. This rapid growth has fundamentally altered the character of the township, and perhaps most importantly, has eroded the densely wooded character of the township an iconic image for this Pinelands town.  Improving the way this change is managed was a core goal of the planning effort. 

The context in which this growth occurred has roots in the history of the township, its location, major market forces and regulatory requirements.  Each is worthy of a brief review.

Egg Harbor Township is huge, nearly 64 square miles in size, yet it has no particular center, no town or village that can be considered its ‘Main Street.’  This somewhat unusual circumstance is the result of the secession of traditional town centers, once coastal villages, from the enormous entity known as Egg Harbor, which at one time stretched from the Delaware River to the Atlantic Ocean. 

Over time, the cohesive small communities along the shoreline broke away, including Atlantic City, Somers Point, Linwood, Northfield, Pleasantville and Absecon, leaving the massive area of Pine Barrens to the west to become a community on its own, Egg Harbor Township. 

With a population fewer than 5,000 at the end of World War II Egg Harbor Township residents were scattered thinly across the township, with a handful of small concentrations around rural villages such as Steelmanville and Scullville.  But the world around Egg Harbor Township was changing. 

The Garden State Parkway opened in 1958 the Atlantic City Expressway was completed in 1964, increasing development pressure on the shore communities by greatly shortening travel time from the Philadelphia and New York metropolitan areas.  The population of Egg Harbor Township doubled to nearly 10,000 by 1970, but was still thinly spread across the huge township.  Still another major change, the authorization of casinos in Atlantic City in 1979, brought a massive economic engine to within five miles of the township. 

The township’s population doubled again by the early 1980s, to over 20,000.  With the casinos came nearly 44,000 employees.  Low land cost and easy to develop sites made Egg Harbor Township attractive to developers who wanted to meet the housing needs of this new population.  Now the township is home to over 41,000 people, more than 5,000 of whom are casino employees.

Another key factor in the rapid growth of Egg Harbor Township is its designation as a growth area under the Pinelands Commission Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP).  Adopted in 1980 the CMP designated the majority of the developable land in Egg Harbor Township as a “Regional Growth Area.”  While immensely complex in its details, this extraordinary conservation program is fundamentally structured to relocate housing development activities from preservation areas to growth areas.  The tool employed to transfer development is called a Pinelands Development Credit (PDC). 

The growth areas were selected, in part, because they were in locations likely to experience housing demand, on the fringes of the Philadelphia metropolitan area and adjacent to Atlantic City.   The CMP requires growth areas, such as in the township, to be zoned to permit a residential density bonus if developers employ the PDCs.  PDCs area purchased from the “PDC bank,” which was created to market the credits for the landowners in preservation areas who sold their development rights.

After the enactment of the CMP a lengthy dispute ensued between the Pinelands Commission and Egg Harbor Township as the township resisted increases to the permitted densities in residential zones.  The issue was finally resolved when the township enacted changes to their zoning code that brought the township into compliance with the state law in the 1996.

The critical issue from the perspective of this planning effort is that the township has witnessed rapid growth, driven by market forces and regulatory requirements, which has had a host of consequences to schools, traffic and public services among others.  This rapid growth has been spread across the township and has led to degradation of its wooded character and to heightened concern for the need to create a stronger “sense of place,” a center, for what is now a very substantial community. 

These issues, and the attendant problems of rapid growth, drove the Visioning Team and the community to develop the plan’s recommendations.  A summary of the recommendations follows and each of these recommendations is discussed in greater detail in the plan.

Recommendations

1. Community Form

Egg Harbor Township’s community form – affected most recently by thousands of single-family homes in medium and large traditional subdivisions – can be better managed by establishing higher density, mixed-use centers and conserving the areas that still retain woodland character through improved protection and reduced density.

Centers can also provide a commercial core for the township and help create a community identity that can be carried forward as the township continues to grow.  There are three areas within the township that are particularly suited to a mixed-use, center development form: the underused commercial areas along the Black Horse Pike near the intersection with the Garden State Parkway; the Black Horse Pike corridor and the Ocean Heights Avenue corridor.  Another area, the commercial corridor that runs through West Atlantic City to the north of U.S. Route 40/322, is suitable for intensive commercial development, especially hotels.  Increased development intensity within these areas should be off-set by reducing growth pressures elsewhere in the township through down-zoning and clustering development. Total residential growth estimates should not be increased.

2. Environment

The community’s environmental character should be protected by conserving areas within or adjacent to freshwater wetlands, limiting site coverage, promoting clustering techniques and conserving existing trees and vegetation during the development process.  Densities, and total numbers or units, of housing development allowed in wooded areas should be reduced.  To the extent these numbers can be reduced, an approximately equal number of housing units should be permitted in the centers.

3. Recreation

Pedestrian, equestrian and biking trails, should be established to link the waterfront (along Lakes Bay in West Atlantic City), open spaces and recreation facilities to residential areas, schools and shopping areas.  There are a considerable number of recreation resources, however, accessibility to and among them is poor and a variety of bicycling, jogging, equestrian trails and water access points were identified and proposed as part of the plan.

4. Schools and Community Facilities

School costs, and the attendant real estate taxes have risen rapidly, and have fallen heavily on the owners of homes.  Egg Harbor Township land use policy has been influenced by the need to garner real estate tax income without increasing the number of school children.   Commercial uses and age-restricted housing have both been supported.  In addition, a community center, already in the development process, will provide activities for adults and serve as a gathering place for the community. 

At present all school children in Egg Harbor Township travel to school by bus.  In the future it may prove desirable to create a neighborhood school, to which children could walk or bicycle.  This option appears out of reach at this time due to safety concerns and diversity requirements but the Visioning Team generally believed that the possibility of a neighborhood school should be considered in the future.

5. Transportation

Congestion on township roads and very poor accommodations for pedestrians are important issues to the Visioning Team and the public.  Major intersections enhancements such as designated turning lanes, intersection approach widening, clearly-delineated cross walks, and signal modernizations are recommended at 14 intersections in the township. 

North-south travel through the township is constrained by the barrier created by the Atlantic City Expressway and Atlantic City International Airport.  North-south traffic along the Fire Road/Bargaintown Road and English Creek corridors could be significantly relieved if access to the Garden State Parkway, to and from the north only, could be provided from Ocean Heights Avenue.  The full list of plan recommendations has been summarized and organized based on the type of issue the recommendation addresses. 

Implementation

While some recommendations in the plan can be addressed largely through actions by Egg Harbor Township, many will require commitments of time and resources from agencies that are outside of township including the Pinelands Commission, the State Office of Smart Growth, Atlantic County, the South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization, The New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, and the Atlantic County Improvement Authority. 

Several of these agencies will have a direct hand in the changes in the township through capital investments or the imposition of policies, while others have the capacity to allocate resources and provide coordination.  All have a stake in the success of Egg Harbor Township and all are needed as participants. 

Read the entire report at http://www.ehtgov.org/PDF/LivableCommunitiesReport.pdf