Chesterfield Township NJ
Homes for Sale

Chesterfield is a farm township that decided, deliberately, to build its houses close together. In the late 1990s the township adopted a transfer of development rights program that moves the right to build out of the farmland and into a single 560-acre receiving area — Old York Village — designed at the density of an old-fashioned village rather than a subdivision. More than half of Chesterfield's land is now permanently preserved farmland. That one policy decision explains almost everything a buyer notices here.

It is why you find modest lots in the middle of open country. Chesterfield Downs, Chesterfield Green, Traditions at Chesterfield, Cross Creek and the Villages at Chesterfield are clustered, walkable neighborhoods with front porches and footpaths, sitting inside a township of working farms. It is also why the handful of properties on real acreage here are so distinctive — the older farmhouses and estates outside the village, on parcels that will not be subdivided because the development rights are already gone.

This is an expensive market, and buyers should go in knowing that. The bulk of the township trades well above where the rest of Burlington County sits, with large newer colonials on modest lots making up most of the inventory and four and five bedroom homes the standard rather than the exception. The more accessible end — under $500,000 — is where the townhomes and condominiums live, mainly in Traditions and Cross Creek, and it is the realistic entry point into the township.

There is also active new construction here, which is genuinely uncommon in this county — new townhomes are going up along Bordentown Crosswick Road right now, with units still coming to market. If brand new is what you want and you want it in this school district, this is one of the few Burlington County addresses where that is currently possible.

Schools run the standard regional pattern: Chesterfield Township Public Schools handles the elementary years, then students move to Northern Burlington County Regional for middle and high school. The township itself is older than most of the state — settled by Quakers in the 1670s, with three historic villages in Crosswicks, Chesterfield and Sykesville, and it included Bordentown City and Township until 1849. The New Jersey Turnpike clips the northern corner, which is what puts Philadelphia, Princeton and New York all within reach of a place that still looks like farmland. Whether you are watching the newest listings or reading where values are heading, Joe Wiessner Realty tracks this market listing by listing.