The Gloucester County Planning Commission approved a proposal for county-sponsored rezoning of properties designated B-3 (Office Business) during a meeting Thursday night in the colonial courthouse. The matter now moves on for deliberation by the Gloucester Board of Supervisors.

The original staff recommendation was to reclassify approximately 80 parcels of land from B-3 to B-1 (Business), but planner Sean McNash said that community input helped staff advertise more than 100 parcels that might be reclassified from B-3 to one of several different zoning districts: B-1, B-2 (Village Business), and SF-1.

Several properties are split-zoned, which means that one parcel has one zoning designation for one portion of the property and another designation for the other; a handful of these involve property zoned C-1 (Conservation).

The net effect would be to eliminate the B-3 district. McNash said that reclassifying select parcels would be less restrictive than the uses permitted in B-3. Remov...