To the Editor:
The August 19 Town Topics reported on Princeton’s review of its Zoning Code and the changes that may follow [“Affordability, Housing Diversity at Heart of Zoning Review,” page 1]. Before new zoning is proposed, we should ask a straightforward question: What current evidence supports the changes being considered?
Consider Princeton University, our largest employer. The 2023 Master Plan cites the University’s “plans for continued growth” in discussing the University’s future. Princeton University is now telling us something quite different. President Christopher Eisgruber titled his 2026 State of the University letter “From Growth to Focus.” He wrote that Princeton “will continue to build, but more slowly in the years to come,” with change increasingly coming through “efficiency and substitution rather than addition.” The University has also reduced its assumed long-term endowment return from 10.2 percent to 8 percent.
That is not speculation. It is what our largest employer is telling us about its future.
We should demand the same rigor when considering housing policy. The Master Plan promotes “Missing Middle” housing, but Missing Middle describes a type of housing, not its price. Duplexes, townhouses, and ADUs can increase the variety and number of housing units. But in a community with exceptionally high land values and demand, does permitting more market-rate housing necessarily create greater economic diversity?
We don’t need to debate that question in the abstract. The answer is knowable. Let’s find out. Princeton has data showing where ADUs have been approved and built, and property records can tell us what happened to the homes and their values. Where modest homes have been demolished and replaced by larger homes with additional units, what was lost, what was built, and what happened to the size and value of the resulting housing? Did we create more attainable housing, or simply more market-rate housing?
Princeton also needs to look beyond its borders. Lawrence is planning approximately 800 housing units at the former ETS site, along with additional housing near Princeton’s Route 206 border. Montgomery has added substantial housing as well as attractive new shopping centers that serve a regional market. Princeton University now has substantial capacity for future development in its Meadows Neighborhood in West Windsor, where it has already built graduate housing and infrastructure to support additional development over time. Housing markets, employment, retail, traffic — and people’s daily lives — do not stop at municipal borders. We should be planning regionally.
Affordability and housing diversity are important policy goals. But continuity of those goals should not substitute for current evidence about how best to achieve them. Much of the planning work of recent years occurred during or on the shoulders of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was difficult to know what societal changes would endure. We no longer need to guess. Update the population, employment, and commuting data. Examine work-from-home and outdoor dining assumptions. Account for regional development. Measure the results of policies we have already tried.
A new zoning code should rest on current evidence, not untested assumptions.