By Matthew Hersh
Local planners, architects, residents, and community advocates gathered Saturday to consider what Princeton’s new zoning code should accomplish, as the Municipality prepares to publicly present a wide-ranging diagnostic report Thursday that could help shape land use in Princeton for a generation.
“Zoning for Community: Reimagining Land Use, Housing, Opportunity, and Growth,” hosted local planning advocacy organization Princeton Future at the Dr. Carl A. Fields Center at Princeton University, explored questions ranging from housing density and affordability to parking, walkability, neighborhood character, public space, and the complexity of Princeton’s existing zoning regulations.
The discussion took place just ahead of the Municipality’s September 24 public presentation of the newly released Code Diagnostic prepared by planning consultant Camiros. The presentation is scheduled for Thursday at 7 p.m. at Witherspoon Hall, 400 Witherspoon Street. Princeton Council contracted with Chicago-based Camiros in August 2025 for the first year of an anticipated multiyear effort to create a unified zoning code.
Anton Nelessen, a Princeton resident, urban designer, registered professional planner, and professor emeritus at Rutgers University, described the 67-page diagnostic as “a really good first-step document,” but argued that continued public involvement will be critical as its concepts are translated into an ordinance.
Nelessen offered a more critical assessment of the regulations the new code is intended to replace: “The existing zoning is complex, fragmented, amended, and dysfunctional,” he said.
The Municipality continues to operate under zoning regulations inherited from the former Borough and Township, despite the two municipalities having consolidated in 2013. The diagnostic recommends replacing the separate frameworks with a unified code that is easier to understand and better aligned with Princeton’s 2023 Master Plan.
Camiros also identifies opportunities to expand Princeton’s range of housing. Among the concepts presented are making accessory dwelling units easier to construct; allowing some large, older houses to be divided into multiple residences; and considering “missing density” housing types such as duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses, and cottage courts in appropriate locations.
The report does not propose allowing all those housing types in every neighborhood. It calls for evaluating them more strategically, in line with neighborhood context, infrastructure, and the policies of the Master Plan. Other concepts include reorganizing Princeton’s numerous residential zones, simplifying dimensional standards, and considering the elimination of minimum parking requirements.
Nelessen said the diagnostic addresses many important technical issues, but he would like the eventual code to devote greater attention to urban design, form-based zoning, and public spaces.
“I believe that streets are your most important public spaces,” he said. “It’s from the street that your impression of place really begins to occur.”
Princeton architect and developer J. Robert Hillier, another longtime voice on local planning and development, brought the discussion from planning principles to the costs and practical constraints of building in Princeton.
“One thing that people don’t realize is that underground parking today starts at about $60,000 per car,” he said. “And so, for every car you’re going to park, it’s a $60,000 bill.”
Hillier, who is also publisher of Town Topics, pointed to the Spring Street garage as an example of integrating parking into a larger development. Apartments wrap around the structure, largely concealing it as a garage, while the project also helps define the public plaza outside the Princeton Public Library.
He also emphasized the relationship between street design and pedestrian activity. When visitors come to Princeton, Hillier said, he takes them to the corner of Nassau and Witherspoon streets and asks them to look in both directions.
“The streets, they’re 18 feet wide, which is great, and they are packed with people,” he said, comparing the weekend pedestrian activity to a Manhattan streetscape. “With Princeton, it looks like that every Saturday and Sunday.”
Hillier also discussed his long-planned redevelopment project along Witherspoon Street, which he said is being advanced as a single development assembled from four properties. The plans would preserve and restore the existing buildings facing the street while adding three- and four-story residential buildings behind them.
Hillier said the number of apartments on the properties would grow from 32 to 76. The approach, he suggested, illustrates how Princeton might add housing while retaining the historic buildings and streetscape that define a neighborhood.
“Our whole strategy is to do the one thing as one development,” he said. “We’re saving all the existing buildings that face the street. That’s the historic part of it, and we’re trying to get as many units as we can.”