Richwood residents blame Gloucester County town’s leaders for enabling a 10-warehouse proposal ‘none of us want’

The seemingly inevitable prospect of massive warehouses rising in the largely rural Richwood area led some Harrison Township residents to confront local elected officials Monday.

“An industrial park is what you’re turning Richwood into,” Heather Freeman said. “It will destroy our community.”

Freeman was among 20 people who spoke during an emotionally charged township committee meeting.

Some fought back tears, others were visibly angry, and the skeptical audience applauded the comments.

“I bought my house to retire in,” said Linda Clemente, adding that she has been approached to sell her home by a developer’s representative.

By selling, “I’m letting your dreams come true,” Clemente told Mayor Louis Manzo and other committee members. “You’ve destroyed mine.”

Like suburban towns and urban neighborhoods across the Philadelphia region, Harrison Township’s Richwood area — just west of the Route 322 and 55 interchange — is being eyed by warehouse developers eager for easy access to the I-95 corridor.

A North Jersey real estate firm’s preliminary plan for 10 warehouses, 84 affordable and 116 conventional housing units, a 100-room hotel, and a buyers-club style retail building in Richwood already has been approved by the township’s Joint Land Use board.

That Sept. 5 decision followed two successive revisions to the redevelopment plan for Richwood. Since 2008, at least two plans by previous developers for a town center retail complex and a regional soccer facility in Richwood went nowhere.

Meanwhile, a proposal for four warehouses totaling two million square feet near the township’s Mullica Hill section, rejected by the township after a surge of public opposition, is likely on again following a state Superior Court ruling last year that found the rejection to have been “capricious.”

No warehouse-related items were on the committee’s agenda Monday, but Manzo took notes during the public portion of the meeting. He offered answers after it ended.

“We’ve never sought warehouses,” the mayor said. “We’re not trying to get warehouses in here.”

But Manzo said the township is vulnerable to warehouse development because its location, as well as zoning that permits such uses in the Richwood and Mullica Hill areas, which have excellent access to Route 55 and the New Jersey Turnpike, respectively.

Less than 10% of the taxes collected in the township comes from commercial properties.

And because the Richwood warehouse developers would be required to pay to construct sewer service in the redevelopment area, affordable housing the township is court-ordered to provide can be built there, Manzo said.

Called “Project Freedom,” the proposed 10-acre apartment complex would be marketed to veterans.

The mayor also said that development of residential subdivisions from what had once been family farms has enabled the township to grow but has also meant the loss of the agricultural community that once defined it.

“Nobody really wants to see farm ground developed, but I had to sell most of my ground in 2008,” William “Phil” Reuter said during an interview last week. His family has farmed in Richwood since 1878.

“I kept a small amount to farm, but the reality is, farmers can’t afford to stay in business,” Reuter said. “We don’t control our own destiny. And whether its warehouses, houses, or big-box stores, we know it’s coming.”