Springfield Burlington County
City Zoning Code

A simple variance or variances permitting the construction or alteration of buildings, structures or other improvements shall expire unless a building permit is obtained and construction of such buildings, structures or other improvements is begun within one year of the date on which the resolution memorializing the grant of such variance(s) was adopted.

On application to the Land Use Board and notice of the application as provided by § 18-29, the Board may extend simple variances for a period of one year, not to exceed two such one-year extensions for good cause shown. In all such cases, in addition to the reasons for the delay and any hardship the applicant asserts will be occasioned by the expiration of the variance, the Board shall consider all relevant changed circumstances, including but not limited to changes in the Township's Master Plan or development regulations, changes in the subject property and changes in the surrounding area.

Applicants may apply for and the Board may grant extensions either before or after the one year expiration date, but whenever the Board grants an extension after the initial one-year period has ended and the variance has expired, the extension shall begin on what would otherwise have been the expiration date.

All variances shall expire and all rights conferred by the grant of such variances shall be lost unless a building permit is obtained and construction begun upon the expiration of the extensions provided for herein.

Conditional variances and all rights conferred by the grant of such variances shall expire within one year of the date on which the resolution memorializing the grant of such variance was adopted unless the applicant has filed and diligently pursues all additional approvals, including outside agency approvals, upon which the original variance was conditioned.

On application to the Land Use Board and notice of the application as provided by § 18-29, the Board may extend conditional variances for a period of one year. In all such cases, in addition to the reasons for the delay and any hardship the applicant asserts will be occasioned by the expiration of the variance, the Board shall consider all relevant changed circumstances, including but not limited to changes in the Township's Master Plan or development regulations, changes in the subject property and changes in the surrounding area.

Applicants may apply for and the Board may grant one, one-year extension, either before or after the one-year expiration date, but whenever the Board grants an extension after the initial one-year period has ended and the variance has expired, the extension shall begin on what would otherwise have been the expiration date.

Conditional variances and all rights conferred by the grant of such variances shall expire unless a building permit is obtained and construction of the project has begun within six months of the date when the applicable period of protection from zoning changes provided by N.J.S.A. 40:55D-46.1, 40:55D-47, 40:55D-49 and 40:55D-52 plus all mandatory and/or discretionary extensions of minor subdivision approval, preliminary and final major subdivision approval or preliminary and final site plan approval, as the case may be, has expired.

Negotiations between landowners and farmland preservation program officials often result in agreements allowing landowners to carve one or more lots out of their farms, or to seek variances for land to be excepted from the terms of the preservation deed of easement prior to enrolling their farms in the program. In these cases, so as to take as little productive farmland out of agriculture as possible, the land use plan element of the Township's 2001 Master Plan urges landowners to seek and the Township's land use boards to approve variances for undersized lots in such cases and to approve such other variances as promote farmland preservation.

Because land enrolled in the farmland preservation program is restricted to agricultural use in perpetuity, variances conditioned upon the enrollment of a farm in the farmland preservation program shall run with the land in perpetuity and shall not expire, provided that the landowner complies with the condition and enrolls the farm in the program.

This provision shall apply only to variances granted subsequent to January 1, 2007.