Well-intentioned residents lament the need for both. Beginning in the 1970s, this 335-unit community just blocks from the Burlington County courthouse and offices has been a repository of crime and blight.
But lately, there are glimmers of improvement.
With the help of $500,000 in federal, state and county grants, Mount Holly 2000, a nonprofit housing group, has rehabilitated four houses and is working on six more. Two families now live in the rebuilt homes.
For the second round of improvements, the group plans to buy a dozen more houses this spring through a $322,000 loan from Burlington County. A state grant application for $230,000 is pending.
The Mount Holly Township Council has poured $150,000 into repaving alleys in the Gardens. This spring, police plan to expand their bicycle patrol into the neighborhood. Even the township's housing inspectors have been bearing down, issuing summonses for improperly secured vacant houses and trash in yards.
``It's an area in transition,'' said Andy Gordon, a staff member at Salt and Light, a Christian nonprofit housing group also working to restore area houses. Gordon and partner Bill McEwan were standing on the stripped floor of a house at 104 Levis Dr., one of two properties the group hopes to refurbish and sell or rent to a qualified, low-income buyer.
Another spark is the Urban Enterprise Zone, an area designated for lower business taxes, established in Mount Holly in March 1995. Township officials hope that, eventually, businesses attracted by the 3 percent sales tax will offer employment to Gardens residents who want to work. A business such as the recently opened Haddonfield Lumber, directly across from the Gardens on Rancocas Road, would not be there without the enterprise zone, said Township Manager John Tegley.
