By Matthew Hersh
Eight new electric vehicle charging stalls are coming to the Princeton Shopping Center after the Planning Board unanimously approved a variance for the project.
The charging stations will be installed in the shopping center’s eastern parking lot, near the Blue Bears Special Meals location. The project will convert 10 existing parking spaces into the eight EV charging stalls, resulting in a net loss of two spaces and reducing the shopping center’s total parking supply from 960 spaces to 958.
The four dual-port chargers will be Level 3 DC fast chargers operated by iONNA, LLC. Sarah MacLean, a deployment manager for iONNA who represented the company before the board, said the chargers will be available to the general public and are designed to accommodate both major charging plug types, CCS and NACS.
MacLean said a typical vehicle could reach an 80 percent charge in approximately 20 to 30 minutes. The company’s strategy, she said, is to locate chargers near shopping, restaurants, and other amenities so customers can patronize local businesses while their vehicles charge.
“This is really focused on customer experience being the central model,” MacLean told the board during its July 16 hearing.
The chargers will be located near the shopping center sidewalk, with a crosswalk providing access to the shopping center. The project also calls for a transformer and switchgear cabinet, relocation of a light pole, changes to an existing planting island, and four replacement shade trees.
Councilman David Cohen, also a Planning Board member, questioned whether the chargers needed to occupy some of the shopping center’s more desirable parking spaces. He suggested that moving them farther from the shopping center could preserve prime parking spaces for conventional vehicles.
MacLean said the location had been agreed upon with the shopping center and that moving the chargers farther away could make it more difficult to provide an accessible route from the ADA-designated charging spaces to the shopping center.
The project came before the full Planning Board not because of the EV chargers themselves, but because of proposed signage on the charging equipment. Under state law, the installation of EV chargers generally does not go through Princeton’s land-use approval process.
Princeton Assistant Planning Director Nathan Foote told the board that if the project had consisted only of the charging stations and associated electrical equipment, it would have gone through an administrative or minor site-plan process. The signage requires variances under Princeton’s existing ordinance, which does not currently contemplate the proposed signs.
Princeton Planning Director Justin Lesko said that the Municipality plans to address EV charger signage as part of an effort to modernize its largely decades-old sign ordinance. State law also encourages the installation of EV chargers when they are included as part of larger development applications, he said.
The project received a positive report from Princeton’s Environmental Commission, although the commission suggested moving the chargers farther into the parking lot and adding a solar canopy. MacLean said relocating the project at this stage would require redesign and a new contracting process and would affect the project’s budget and schedule. The current budget cannot accommodate canopies, she said, and the Planning Board discussion did not further pursue that idea.
No immediate installation timetable was given, although the project is expected to proceed in the short term. The eight charging stalls will be open to the public, with drivers able to locate them through charging apps and vehicle navigation systems.