Moorestown’s largest affordable apartment building opens soon. The milestone hasn’t been easy to reach.

Moorestown’s largest affordable apartment building will be ready for occupancy in the spring. Already 1,000 potential tenants have expressed interest in living in the Residences at Harper, according to the developer.

The $27.5 million, 76-unit building marks the township’s third effort to provide affordable housing on or near a mostly commercial stretch of eastbound Route 38. Two earlier attempts were met with legal hurdles and public opposition.

In 2019, the township council voted to purchase the 3.1-acre Harper site for $1.8 million from SFA, a commercial real estate company in Cherry Hill.

Moorestown sold the property to Pennrose, the developer of the project, for $1 in December 2023.

“Our goal is to build high quality affordable housing you wouldn’t recognize is affordable housing,” said Noah Freiberg, senior developer with Pennrose.

The Philadelphia firm also will manage Harper, which will offer 14 one-bedroom, 42 two-bedroom, and 19 three-bedroom units in the four-story structure nearing completion at Harper and Eastgate drives. One of the 76 units in the building will not be available to rent; it will be the home of the on-site property manager.

Currently, market-rate rents for two-bedroom apartments in Moorestown vary from about $1,800 to $2,200 or higher. Depending on the tenant’s income and family size, a two-bedroom at Harper will go for between $753 and $1,507.

Despite a nationwide shortage of housing of all sorts, including units that rent or sell for below market rate, it seems many support new residential development as long as the housing is built somewhere else.

Especially when that housing is meant to be affordable.

The Residences at Harper, for example, is adjacent to a business park, within walking distance of the Moorestown Mall — and tucked away from residential areas.

“Awareness of the national affordable housing crisis has grown, and more people understand that young people, working people, and seniors need affordable housing,” Freiberg said. “But the need to continue educating the public is ongoing.”

Moorestown Mayor Quinton Law knows firsthand the importance of affordable housing: During his childhood in the township, he lived for a time in a property his family rented from MEND Inc.

The faith-based nonprofit has provided affordable rentals in Burlington County since 1969.

“Without affordable housing I wouldn’t have been able to stay in this community. We would have had to move,” said Law, 27, who was sworn in as mayor in January.

“I’m just grateful that Moorestown is doing this project,” he said Thursday at the Harper construction site. “This is a step forward for the township. It signals our commitment that everyone, regardless of income, should have a chance to call Moorestown home.”

Since 2015, Moorestown and many other municipalities across New Jersey have agreed to allow for a certain number of affordable housing units on a schedule overseen by the state Superior Court. As of Feb. 3, 431 of 564 municipalities have signed on.

More than 21,000 affordable homes have been produced since 2015, said Adam M. Gordon, executive director of the Fair Share Housing Center in Cherry Hill.

According to the National Low Income Housing Center, it would take more than 200,000 additional units for New Jersey to meet the needs of extremely low-income renters.

By 2035, Moorestown alone will need 250 additional affordable units, and 20 current units would be in need of rehabilitation. In January, the township adopted a resolution accepting those projections, said Jag Davies a spokesperson for Fair Share.

The center advocates for the continued application of the Mount Laurel Doctrine, named for New Jersey Supreme Court decisions that outlawed local zoning aimed at excluding poor people and people of color.

Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation last year to streamline the process so that local governments can work with developers to get more affordable housing built more quickly. The law includes incentives for age-restricted, transit-adjacent, special needs, and other purpose-built affordable housing.

“Now, within certain limitations, it’s up to the towns to figure out” how best to accommodate local affordable housing needs, said Gordon.

At the Moorestown Mall just west of the Harper apartments, a concrete parking garage vacant since it was built more than a year ago awaits the start of construction on The Pearl, a 375-unit apartment complex that will include 75 affordable units. Construction is expected to start this year, the Moorestown Sun reported.

Thirteen affordable units are planned for a 64-townhouse development on Centerton Road as well.

Six years before the state Supreme Court issued its first Mount Laurel decision in 1975, a consortium of churches in Moorestown set up a nonprofit to answer a pressing local need for affordable housing.

“We have 253 affordable homes,[including] rehabs or adaptive reuse of existing properties,” MEND president and CEO Eileen Wirth said.

While MEND also built the 24-unit Teaberry Apartments on Lippincott Avenue in Moorestown, most of its properties are on scattered sites throughout the township, she said.

“To get funding and shovels in the ground and people into homes takes years and years,” she said. “So any time there’s more affordable housing [like Harper], it’s good news … because we still don’t have enough affordable housing.”