By Matthew Hersh
Princeton’s effort to rewrite its Zoning Code is approaching its first major milestone, with a consultant’s assessment of the Municipality’s existing regulations expected to be completed next month.
The diagnostic report, being prepared by Camiros, a Chicago-based planning firm hired by Princeton last year, is expected to be presented to the Council and at a separate public meeting in mid- to late September, according to Planning Director Justin Lesko. The dates are still being finalized.
The report will assess Princeton’s existing zoning and begin laying out a path toward a new code, using the Municipality’s 2023 Master Plan as its policy foundation.
“It also begins to set a path for what our new Zoning Code will be based on our Master Plan,” Lesko said.
The review is taking place amidst a growing statewide debate about how New Jersey can expand its housing supply and provide a greater variety of housing options.
Princeton’s zoning project dates in part to the Municipality’s 2013 consolidation, when the former Borough and Township became one Municipality but retained separate zoning regulations. In August 2025, Princeton Council approved an $83,600 contract with Camiros for the first phase of a unified Zoning Code update. The overall project was expected to take several years and cost approximately $300,000 to $500,000.
The Municipality’s request for proposals identified a number of issues with potential implications for housing, including “missing middle” housing types, minimum parking requirements, form-based zoning, consolidation of zoning districts, and streamlining the land-use approval process.
But Lesko said it is too early to draw conclusions about which policies will ultimately change.
For now, he pointed to the 2023 Master Plan, which was developed following extensive public engagement and included nearly 10,000 individual inputs from Princeton residents.
The plan calls for “housing ample and diverse enough to accommodate all who want to live here” and identifies the removal of barriers to increased residential
opportunities as a land-use priority. A zoning rewrite would have to turn those broad goals into specific zoning guidelines, including what types of homes can be built and where, as well as how much land they require and what process a property owner must go through to build them.
This has been an ongoing conversation at the state level, where state leaders are diving more deeply into factors of unaffordability. That theme surfaced two weeks ago during the Joint Effort Princeton Witherspoon-Jackson Community Safe Streets Summer Program discussion at the Arts Council of Princeton, where Gov. Mikie Sherrill joined state and local officials to discuss the future of New Jersey communities. Housing affordability emerged alongside transportation, public safety, education, and economic opportunity as a major concern.
Joint Effort Safe Streets panelists acknowledged that the state’s housing affordability problem could not be done through building only, but also empowering municipalities to determine what kinds of housing are legal to build and where. Princeton is already making targeted zoning changes to meet its Fourth Round affordable-housing obligations, but the broader code rewrite represents an opportunity to also examine the rules governing housing across the Municipality, including housing that is not necessarily income-restricted.
The Trenton-based policy think tank New Jersey Future has been encouraging municipalities to examine whether their zoning allows the housing types that households need, including duplexes, accessory dwelling units, and other forms of “missing middle” housing. A New Jersey Future discussion held earlier this year also examined the potential for reducing parking requirements, converting underused commercial properties to residential or mixed-use development, and allowing more housing through predictable, as-of-right development.
The discussion was held under the context of 2026 being the 100th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., which ruled that a zoning ordinance must be “clearly arbitrary and unreasonable and without substantial relation to public health, safety, morals, or general welfare before it can be declared unconstitutional.”
After Camiros presents its assessment in September, the Municipality will begin moving from identifying the problems in the existing code toward drafting a new one. Lesko said public open houses are expected next year to allow residents to review draft zoning provisions and determine whether the new regulations are meeting the community’s goals.