SOUTH JERSEY

Will lawsuit alter plans for Royal Farms near Marlton neighborhood?

Celeste E. Whittaker
The Courier-Post

EVESHAM – Residents have filed a lawsuit to prevent a Royal Farms convenience store from being built right behind their neighborhood development.

The plaintiffs, the Orchards at Greentree Homeowners Association Inc., filed a lawsuit in Burlington County Superior Court on June 20 against the Evesham Township Planning Board and FT Equities. The latter is the applicant and developer of the proposed project.

FT Equities has received preliminary and final major site plan approval to build a Royal Farms 24-hour convenience store with a gas station at 600 Route 73 North and Lincoln Drive East, near the AMC movie theater.

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According to the complaint, the homeowners association seeks to reverse those approvals as well as any variances and waivers.

An office building at 600 N. Route 73 in Evesham could be demolished to make way for a Royal Farms convenience store.

The suit argues some residents did not receive proper notification about the proposed project and that a township ordinance does not allow for it to be built there.

Royal Farms hopes to build a 5,371-square-foot store with eight fuel pumps and 16 fueling positions. 

The suit claims service stations are a conditional use in the area where the store is planned, and a township ordinance lists nine conditions the developer of a service station must satisfy in order to be permitted in the zone. One of the conditions, the suit argues, is that “No service station/auto repair shop shall be located within 500 feet of any firehouse, school, playground, church, hospital, public building or institution.”

The plaintiffs say the playground for the Orchards at Greentree townhouse development is within 500 feet of the proposed location. The homeowners association represents more than 300 property owners at the development.

Cars are shown on Route 73 in Marlton at the intersection of Lincoln Drive East. This is the location where a Royal Farms is proposed to be built, although some residents in a neighborhood behind the building in the background are fighting against it.

Bridget Nelson lives in the development and says the store would be about 25 feet from her property. She claims she was made aware of the proposed project only by a Facebook post by a resident who lives at the other end of the Orchards at Greentree development.

“A resident on Roberts Lanes, which is all the way at the other end of our development behind Whole Foods, got the notice and posted on Facebook, ‘does anybody know about this Royal Farms going in?',” Nelson recalled.

Nelson said many had not heard about it, but they googled the address of the proposed location and found out it was right behind their properties.

“I immediately called the township’s planning board office and said, ‘Look, I just found out you’re building a Royal Farms in my backyard, I never got a notice.’ They’re required to send me a notice because I live within 25 feet of this property.

“…They went ahead with the meeting. We gathered as many people as we could to go to the meeting who objected to it.”

But the vote passed at the meeting this spring.

Stuart Platt, attorney for the planning board, said the decision was in accordance with the law.

“The planning board and the developer are both named defendants in the lawsuit and the planning board has filed an answer disputing these claims,” Platt said. “While we don’t comment on pending litigation, it’s our position that the developer satisfied the requirement that they be at least 500 feet away from the playground at issue as they demonstrated during the planning board hearings, and that the notice that was made by the applicant met the legal requirements for notice.”

Homeowners association President Nancy Lapidow-Johnson said there are many concerns with the potential project, including children’s safety at an already busy intersection that includes a nearby bus station, and the impact on property values.

This office building at 600 Route 73 North could be torn down and a Royal Farms could soon be built in its place, although some residents are fighting against it.

“Our feeling is that that type of convenience store and gas station belongs in a commercial area,” she said. “We don’t really consider that particular spot commercial. Yes, if you go further up there’s a movie theater and restaurants. But this is 24/7. Nothing is open 24/7. It does not belong in a residential area. When we purchased homes here, nobody purchased a home thinking they were going to be living behind a gas station. The overall ambiance of the quiet peaceful neighborhood that we particularly chose to live in is going to be destroyed.

"One of the things Royal Farms insisted on was having a left turn out of the service station into Lincoln Drive. The township traffic adviser advised against that and said it’s very dangerous making a left turn out of there.”

Nelson and Lapidow-Johnson said traffic and noise will increase if Royal Farms is allowed to build the store.

A spokesperson for Royal Farms declined to comment.

Several other Royal Farms stores are planned for Burlington County: at Sunbird Plaza, a proposed new retail development on Route 73 in Marlton; at the corner of Route 38 and Fellowship Road and South Church Street in Moorestown; and on Route 38 near Larchmont Boulevard in Mount Laurel.

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