By RICHARD PEARSALL
Courier-Post Staff
DELANCO
The "transit village" that planners envision near the light rail station here hasn't sprung up. Still, new housing is being built at a rapid clip and now some major commercial development is on the way, too.
Delanco, long stable as a community of about 3,000 people lodged between the Delaware River and the Rancocas Creek, is undergoing a growth spurt.
"We're going to see between 550 and 700 new homes in the next three years," Deputy Mayor Vic Vittorino said.
Newton's Landing, an age-restricted development, is going up on former farmland near the Rancocas Creek.
A community of 269 townhouses is planned for the Spain tract, off Burlington Avenue, closer to Beverly.
And Hovnanian, a major builder, is negotiating with property owners to construct a development of new homes on vacant land east of the light rail line.
"It's a tremendous amount of change and change can be tough," said Vittorino, "but change is necessary."
Vittorino has lived all of his 58 years in the township and served on the township committee since 1997.
Today, a Virginia-based company, NVR Building Products, will break ground for a 140,000-foot factory on a 50-acre site off Coopertown Road.
NVR will manufacture roof trusses, wall panels and other components for home construction.
The company expects to hire 85 to 100 workers initially, with the potential to employ 3,000 people if it goes to three shifts.
Virtually next door, a Bellmawr company, Albert E. Price, is planning to erect a 300,000-square-foot warehouse that will employ 80 to 85 people, Vittorino said.
"We're in negotiations with them on a PILOT agreement," Vittorino said, referring to the acronym for a tax incentive program called Payment in Lieu of Taxes.
PILOT was one of the key ingredients in luring NVR to Delanco.
The presence of a rail line, both for freight and passengers, was another, according to Mark Remsa, the head of the economic development program for Burlington County.
"It was told to me that they expect part of their labor pool to use the light rail line," Remsa said.
NVR, based in McLean, Va., has subsidiaries that build houses and issue mortgages.
One of the subsidiaries, Ryan Homes, has built almost 200,000 homes since its founding in 1948, the NVR Web site says.
A second subsidiary, NV Homes, builds homes mainly in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area, while a third, Fox Ridge Homes, is based in Nashville, Tenn.
Under the 20-year PILOT agreement negotiated between NVR and Delanco, the company will pay about half of what it would normally pay in taxes to begin with, with the amount increasing up to full payment after 15 years.
The assessment, believed to be about $8 million, will remain the same for the 20-year period.
Vittorino said the township stands to reap about $1.4 million in taxes from the factory in the next 10 years compared with the $250,000 it would receive if the site remained farmland.
Also in the works for the township is a 12,000-square-foot municipal building for Coopertown Road to replace the existing 4,800-square-foot township building on Burlington Avenue.
Reach Richard Pearsall at (856)-486-2465 or rpearsall@courierpostonline.com
