The U.S. Navy called a Moorestown affordable housing project a security threat? Here's why
MOORESTOWN - An affordable housing community here would post a national security threat.
That's the contention from military officials opposing a housing project planned for Centerton and Hartford roads.
That concern has led to a long-awaited, but still pending, land swap and rezoning for a plan to build up to 76 affordable family units within a complex of 152 apartments and townhomes initially proposed four years ago on the township-owned Nagle Tract.
The U.S. Navy and national defense contractor Lockheed Martin of Moorestown opposed that site for housing because it is directly across the road from a Navy facility that tests and operates the Aegis radar and weapons systems in a highly classified operational partnership.
The radar-equipped facility has a superstructure resembling a ship's deckhouse with radar array on a mast rising 122 feet atop a building in the midst of farmland. It's a landmark along Interstate 295 that is officially the USS Rancocas, also dubbed by the Navy as its “Cruiser in the Cornfield.”
Why is a housing project a national security threat?
"It is the Navy's position that any residential or commercial development on the Nagel Tract property poses Counterintelligence, Signal Intelligence and operational security threats that can affect our mission today and in the future," Philip Mylanarsky, a commanding officer for the Aegis program, wrote to Lockheed's general manager of Moorestown facilities.
That March 2021 letter was sent to township council along with a similar letter of opposition from Lockheed.
"A housing complex may allow adversaries and/or foreign intelligence services the ability to clandestinely monitor and surveil operations ... without detection," the commander explained.
Lockheed offered to swap undeveloped land it owns across the cornfields on Borton Landing Road with the Nagle property as an equal exchange so the affordable housing project could move forward.
That swap also required zoning changes and led the township planning board and council to switch the zoning of the two properties, re-designating the Lockheed lot of 12.5 acres a residential zone specifically as "affordable multi-family," or AMF-6, and the 11.3-acre Nagle Tract for business park development.
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Compromise with Lockheed Martin takes a turn
Before the two lots could change hands, however, legal obstacles arose.
Neighbor Vishnu Reddy, who lives near the Hartford Road site, opposed the housing plan and filed two lawsuits in Superior Court against the township in 2021. One suit challenged council action permitting the land and zoning swaps as "spot zoning." The second protested the planning board’s approval of Lockheed Martin’s subdivision creating the lot for the swap.
The township prevailed in both cases at the trial court level. An appeals court agreed with the township's right to rezone the properties and swap ownership, but ordered the planning board and council to revisit the enabling ordinances because council member David Zipin did not recuse himself from voting.
Zipin is an attorney and ethics officer for the state Housing Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA), which grants tax credits for affordable housing like this one proposed in Moorestown. Although Zipin does not review housing projects at the HMFA, the judge ruled there remained the appearance of conflict when he voted on the rezoning.
Earlier this month, township council re-introduced separate ordinances for the zoning switch and land swap and the planning board has since adopted a required resolution concluding the zoning changes conforms to the township master plan for development.
Township manager Kevin Aberant said council now is poised to conduct public hearings to consider adoption of the two ordinances again on final readings scheduled for its next meeting Monday, July 24.
"If approved, that will pave the way for the transfer of the two properties within the next few months," he said.
Carol Comegno loves telling stories about South Jersey life, history and military veterans for the Courier Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. If you have a story to share, call her at 856-486-2473 or email ccomegno@gannettnj.com.
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kaberant@moorestown.nj,usg
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Why the U.S. Navy, Lockheed Martin opposed affordable housing project
