By Leah Cruz, Special to The Mount Holly Reporter from The College of New Jersey
SUMMARY: Virtua Hospital seeks to expand its Mount Holly campus. In attempts to accommodate Virtua, the Township adopted a new “Health and Life Science” zoning ordinance for the neighborhood around the hospital. The Township, however, did not directly notify residents who would be inside this “HL Overlay” zone. As word of the medical campus land use ordinance spread, residents became alarmed about what might become of their real estate values. Objections were expressed to the “Overlay” zone and the lack of communication and transparency by the township. Mayor Banks replied to resident concerns, saying that the Council was not yet "obligated to let the residents know”. Deputy Mayor DiFolco suggested amendments to remove residential property from the HL Overlay. Township Attorney Coleman then claimed that amendments to the ordinance made it inconsistent with what the Planning Board had considered relative to the Masterplan. Consequently, the amended ordinance was tabled and a new ordinance, with the residential properties removed, was passed on a “first reading” in April and sent back to the Planning Board for a Masterplan “consistency review”.
Pictured: The planning map showing residential areas in yellow “Overlay Zone”
ALARMED RESIDENTS OBJECT TO HOSPITAL ZONE ORDINANCE
On March 10, 2025, Scott Hubbard of Jefferson Avenue rose to address Council about Ordinance 2025-2: “New Health and Life Sciences District”. The ordinance seeks to change Mount Holly’s land use law from an “Office Building” designation to a Health zone that recognizes the proposed medical campus for this area. Doing so makes expansion of a modernized hospital infrastructure, coupled with complementary medical businesses, a compliant land use and therefore easier to achieve.
But Hubbard objected to the zone because it places a “HL Overlay” designation on his home. Hubbard believes that designation would put a question mark in the minds of potential buyers, which could decrease the value of his home.
“Any real estate attorney worth their salt will tell buyers that this house is in a ‘special zone’… and nobody here would pay the same price for a home inside the overlay zone as a similar home outside it.” Scott Hubbard
Mount Holly prepared for residents showing up with questions. They had Patrick VanBernum, a planning professional, at the meeting. VanBernum tried to placate Mr. Hubbard by noting that all the zoning rights of a residential property owner would remain despite the Overlay zone.
But Mr. Hubbard was not convinced by this response, which ignored his real estate market concerns. Hubbard restated his position:
"I don't want to be in the Overlay." Scott Hubbard
Resident opposition at the March 10th 2025 Council meeting did not only have concerns about property values. The roots of local distrust in a Virtua expansion are old and go deeper than the current ordinance. Some who spoke remember the last time Virtua proposed an expansion and they said it resulted in just demolished homes but no redevelopment. Kyle Miller of Madison Avenue said
I want to know exactly what, when, and where. The hospital had their chance to do this years ago and never did. I want to have layouts and drawings of what all this stuff is going to look like.” Kyle Miller
Jackie DiCarlo of Broad Street recounted an erosion of the Greenwood Avenue neighborhood as more and more homes were bought by the hospital and then demolished; her concerns are not theoretical. She recalled that Virtua bought up homes there years ago with the stated intent to redevelop the area for the hospital but then changed its mind, leaving vacant land where there used to be a neighborhood full of taxpayers.
“That whole area was filled with families. We played on Greenwood Avenue and Spout Spring Avenue. The hospital destroyed that whole neighborhood. This has to be controlled.” Jackie DiCarlo
Aerial images from NJDEP show the current vacant land versus the residential uses that existed in 1995.
Resident objections to the plan also involved how the Township failed to communicate about the proposed changes. Residents say they were never informed of the plan. One resident at the March 10th meeting revealed he only found out about the hearing because a neighbor knocked on his door earlier that day.
Councilmember Kim Burkus also objected to the lack of communication.
“Have the property owners within this overlay been notified?” Councilmember Burkus
Both the Township Solicitor Tom Coleman and Mayor Banks responded that the township had technically met the legal requirements for public notification.
"We are not obligated to let the residents know at this particular time, but once this is through, or if it passes, we will send out notification to everyone" Mayor Banks
Resident Nick Sodano objected to this rationale.
“The fact that we are not obligated to tell people just isn’t a good reason to not tell them. We should reach out to all those neighbors and let them know that this thing is happening. We really need to tell these residents before this is a done deal.” Nick Sodano
MAYOR BANKS APOLOGIZES FOR MISUNDERSTANDING
With regard to communication, resident Amber Kopervos of Madison Avenue pointed out that at the first hearing of the ordinance during February, Mayor Banks falsely insisted that residential properties were not included in the zone.
“I want to echo what others have said about the complete lack of transparency with this. You were directly asked, Mayor Banks, if residents would be included in these zoning changes and you said no.” Amber Kopervos
Mayor Banks responded,
“at that time, I was assuming it was not. It is what we were told. I apologize.” Mayor Banks
Unfortunately, Banks’ misunderstanding of what was being voted on could have been amended with the right kind of dialogue that cannot occur if residents are left in the dark. This was explored in the article “Will You Please Stop?”
DEPUTY MAYOR ATTEMPTS TO SAVE THE ORDINANCE
With the Second Reading of Ordinance 2025-2 on the verge of rejection, Deputy Mayor DiFolco attempted to introduce amendments to remove all residential properties from the HL Zone. But township attorney Tom Coleman informed the Council that such an amendment was significant enough that the ordinance would no longer be considered consistent with what the Planning Board approved between the first and second reading.
Coleman was referring to what the Planning Board had previously approved. They considered the HL Zone, with all the residential properties still in it, as “consistent with the Masterplan”. Now that the Council amended the ordinance to remove the lots, Coleman advised that the law required the Planning Board to reconsider the amended ordinance to determine if it is still “consistent” with the Master Plan.
This meant that the amended ordinance had to be tabled and re-introduced in April for a first reading. And then, if approved by Council, sent back to the Planning Board for yet another consistency review.
RESIDENT QUESTION ABOUT THE CONSISTENCY REVIEW IGNORED
With the old ordinance tabled, and the new ordinance [2025-6] not containing any residential lots, Council voted to approve the new version of the ordinance during the April 14th “first reading”. The Planning Board, then, was tasked with reconsidering the new ordinance on April 21st to make sure that it is consistent with the Master Plan.
But the April 21, 2025 Planning Board meeting had an unfortunate resemblance to the February Council meeting when warnings about residential lots in the ordinance were dismissed by the Mayor.
During the public comment section on the reconsideration of the ordinance for consistency with the Master Plan, resident Nick Sodano asked the Planning Board and its attorney Mary Lou Garty, precisely which Master Plan was being used for the consistency review.
Sodano was concerned that, if indeed the Planning Board was using the August 2024 “Reevaluation” Report as the Master Plan, that would present a consistency problem. Specifically, the 2024 document recommended that all the residential lots which were taken out of the new ordinance should be included in the new Health and Life Sciences zone. This presents a consistency problem with the new ordinance containing no residential lots, but the Master Plan still included residential lots. Therefore, Mr. Sodano was concerned that they are not consistent.
But when Sodano asked his question, the Chair of the Joint Land Use Board, Zachary Klein, looked around at the Planning Board members and found that none of them either could or would answer the question of what version of the Master Plan was being used for consistency with Ordinance 2025-6. Klein then asked the Planning Board attorney to clarify but she replied that it was not her place to do so.
With the question unanswered as to what Master Plan language was actually being used to evaluate the consistency of the Ordinance, the Planning Board nevertheless moved on to vote on consistency with the Master Plan. Their vote affirmed that the ordinance was consistent with the Master Plan and was sent back to the Town Council.
Assuming that the August 2024 Reevaluation Report is the Master Plan that was used by the Planning Board to evaluate the consistency of Ordinance 2025-6, then Appendix B, line 1 and 5 in the image above [see yellow highlight] demonstrate that the Master Plan still contains the residential units, which were removed from the Ordinance.
WHICH MASTER PLAN WAS BEING USED?
Attorney Lou Garty refused to answer this question before the Planning Board voted to send the ordinance back to the Town Council. So now questions remain: is the ordinance actually consistent with the Master Plan? And can an ordinance which is not consistent be approved by Council in May?