Chelton Terrace
Welcome to the un-official Chelton Terrace Web page. Here you will find a web-page dedicated to the history of Chelton Terrace, the times in which it was first built, and images and text covering life at Chelton since the first families moved in during 1944.
At the time Chelton Terrace was built, public housing was segregated in Camden. You will find on this page actual documents from the times. The English language constantly evolves, please remember that some of the documents were written using standard vocabulary and grammar in use in the 1940s.
Phil Cohen
Dedicatorial Exercises of Chelton Terrace
Invitation and four-page program for the Dedicatorial Exercises of Chelton Terrace, April 2, 1944.
1974 — After a Fire
Chelton Terrace following a fire caused by bad wiring, 1974.
400 Housing Units To Be Added Near Present Projects
Camden Courier-Post —
Four hundred low-rent dwellings, half the number allocated to the city by the U. S. Public Housing Administration, will be constructed this year on land near the four presently owned projects, Joseph J. McComb, chairman of the Camden Housing Authority, announced Sunday night.
Several factors entered into the decision of housing authority to construct the homes on available land, McComb said. First, he declared, the city will receive revenue in lieu of taxes from unimproved ground yielding little or no taxes, based on 10 percent of shelter rentals, less utilities.
The four projects now operated by the authority are: Westfield Acres, Thirty-first street and Westfield avenue, 514 units, cost $3,250,000, opened 1938; Clement T. Branch Village, Ninth street and Ferry avenue, 279 units, cost $1,416,000, opened 1941; William Stanley Ablett Village, River road and State street, 306 units, cost $1,722,000, open in 1943, and Chelton Terrace, Bulson and Phillips streets, 200 units, cost $800,000, open 1944.
No Added Utilities Needed
McComb also explained that at present, the city receives only three and one-half percent in lieu of taxes from Westfield Acres, Branch Village and Ablett Village. The return from Chelton Terrace is equivalent to full taxes. Only the new projects, allocated under the Housing Act of 1949, will yield the 10 percent return, McComb pointed out.
No new schools will be needed and no new police, fire, health, electricity or gas utilities will be required to service the homes for low-income families, McComb declared.
“The city of Camden will not be compelled or obligated to spend money for additional municipal utilities because they are already provided in the respective four sections of the city where these homes will be built,” McComb said.
To Make Test Borings
The housing authority last week gave the new program the green light when it voted to enter into a contract with William T. Harker & Associates, Inc., Camden, to make test borings, soundings and to do other work on the sites connected with the preliminary survey to be financed by part of a $50,000 advance loan from the PHA for architectural and engineering services.
Under a PHA regulation, construction of the 800 dwellings will be spaced over a two-year period with the additional 400 units being earmarked for next year.
Several weeks ago McComb, following an inspection tour, announced sufficient land would be available as sites for the dwellings. He reemphasized that assurance Sunday but added that if it is found additional ground is needed, no inflated or speculative prices will be paid for it, whether acquired through purchase or condemnation proceedings specified by law.