January 2, 2013

Thanks All Around at Final Borough Meeting

There was business, old and new, on the agenda at a meeting of Princeton Borough Council the night after Christmas. But for the 20 or so citizens who braved a pelting rainstorm to attend this final gathering of the governing body at Borough Hall, there was an air of nostalgia about the end of an era and the fate of the Dinky.

Of the seven members of the Council, including Mayor Yina Moore, three С Jenny Crumiller, Jo Butler, and Heather Howard С will be moving on to the governing body representing the newly consolidated Princeton. Roger Martindell, Kevin Wilkes, Barbara Trelstad, and Mayor Moore will have stepped down as of January 1.

Repeatedly, members of the public thanked the Council members for their service. Alain Kornhauser, Marty Schneiderman, Jim Harford, Pam Hersh, Borough Police Lieutenant Sharon Papp, and architect/developer [and Town Topics shareholder] Bob Hillier were among those on hand who expressed gratitude to the Council for their years of work in the community.

Members of Council, in turn, singled out Mr. Kornhauser, a professor at Princeton University who has been particularly vocal in his opposition to the University’s plan to move the Dinky station as part of its Arts and Transit neighborhood. That plan was approved December 18 by the Planning Board. Borough Council was not in favor of moving the Dinky terminus.

“I share his disappointment that we weren’t able to come up with a better result for the train,” Mr. Wilkes said. “I have to thank him for what has to be thousand of hours of instructive leadership and instructive research on this issue, and always keeping it in the forefront of our minds, helping those of us who don’t understand transportation planning professionally be focused on the issues.”

Ms. Crumiller, Mayor Moore, Mr. Martindell, and Ms. Trelstad also thanked Mr. Kornhauser following his own remarks. “I can’t express enough appreciation to each of you,” Mr. Kornhauser said. “I know you all struggled mightily with the issue, and it came down the way it came down. I just wanted to express my personal thanks.”

Mayor Moore said that “a serious offer” has been made to NJ Transit to purchase the Dinky and its right of way by Henry Posner, a private investor who owns several rail lines and is a former student of Mr. Kornhauser. Mr. Posner spoke to Council in 2011 about his ideas for the Dinky line. Mayor Moore said she will write a letter to Governor Chris Christie about the offer.

Delivering the monthly police report, Ms. Papp told the Council that police will have five zones to patrol in the consolidated Princeton. Asked by Mr. Wilkes if the police departments have developed an active shooter protocol in response to the recent shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, Ms. Papp said that the department has already had drills with high school students. “Come January 1, we will be giving extra attention to the schools,” she said.

Among the actions taken at this final meeting were approval of a request by Mr. Hillier regarding The Waxwood apartments to ease eligibility requirements for prospective tenants, and the movement of an ordinance amending the Service Business (SB) Zone on East Nassau Street. An agenda item on the use of informational kiosks on Nassau Street was tabled and moved to the new Council with the assurance that a community-wide discussion will be held on the matter.

The new Princeton Council will hold a meeting Thursday, January 3 at 5 p.m. in the Municipal Building.

August 1, 2012

Ground Broken for Copperwood Development Following Lengthy Discussion Process, Delays

BREAKING NEW GROUND: After many years of discussion, design, and redesign; digging officially began July 26 for the Copperwood community with the help of those who were instrumental in its development. From left: J. Robert Hillier, architect and developer; Michael Lee of Costanza Builders; Phyllis Marchand, former Princeton Township mayor; Chad Goerner, current Township mayor; Michele Byers, executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation; and Wendy Mager, president of Friends of Princeton Open Space. (Photo by Jeff Tryon)

Last week’s groundbreaking for Copperwood, the senior housing development on Bunn Drive, marked the end of a lengthy process that involved years of deliberation and debate. Along the way, a somewhat adversarial relationship between the architect/developer and the co-founder of a citizens’ organization committed to preserving the wooded site evolved into a kind of mutual admiration society.

J. Robert Hillier, the architect/developer (and Town Topics shareholder), had only the warmest praise for Daniel Harris, co-founder of People for Princeton Ridge, Inc., at the groundbreaking ceremony. In turn, Mr. Harris spoke effusively of Mr. Hillier a few days later. “It needs to be said that Bob was not only thoroughly cooperative with our group, but with community interests altogether,” Mr. Harris said. “He really  understood that this is what building in Princeton needs to be right now.”

Along with others involved in the developing of the rental community, Mr. Hillier and Mr. Harris met several times to try to fine-tune the design. Key to the project were energy-saving and sustainability techniques espoused by Mr. Harris and his wife, Jane Buttars, co-founder of People for the Princeton Ridge. They and other environmentalists had concerns about the many trees on the tract, some of which are over 100 years old. They also worried about storm-water runoff from the property’s steep slopes. “The public health danger to the community downstream was immense,” Mr. Harris recalled. “So this was a matter of public health as well as public policy.”

Eventually, Mr. Hillier arrived at a plan for a smaller footprint than originally proposed for the active adult community, clustering five buildings on three acres of the 21-acre site. Two of the buildings will have three floors, and three will have four stories. Small walkways, gardens, and piazzas will separate the buildings. Amenities will include a fitness center, cafe lounge/library, and a lecture/meeting room, all surrounding a central piazza with a fountain.

The history of trying to build senior housing on the site known as the Lowe tract, goes back to 2005, when builder K. Hovnanian first obtained approval. But Hovnanian pulled out of the deal, enabling Mr. Hillier to proceed with a plan for a smaller project. Construction of Copperwood will disturb 20 percent of the site, while the original Hovnanian plan would have disturbed almost 80 percent. The remaining lands will be put into conservation in perpetuity. A total of 396 trees will be removed, to be replaced with 241 new trees.

“We knew what the concerns were, so we came up with a design that made it a more tightly-knit kind of village,” Mr. Hillier said this week. “Every time we were able to do those redesigns, more woods got saved.”

While the environmental group at first objected to any building at all on Princeton Ridge, they now welcome the Hillier plan. “This is the greenest building that has ever gone up in Princeton,” Mr. Harris said. “Bob gets an enormous amount of credit for doing this, and we get credit also for educating the community about green buildings and LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design]. These buildings have green roofs. They are watered by gray water that is recycled within the building. The building’s facade materials are reflective, so they will push away heat.”

At the groundbreaking, Mr. Hillier announced that there was a waiting list of 165 people for the development’s 153 units. By early this week, that number had jumped to 177. “There has never been anything like this in Princeton. What this means is that older folks can now live in town, and yet downsize,” he said. “There is no decent, new, modern place for people to downsize to, relieving them of maintenance and things like taking care of lawns. Now, they don’t have to leave town.”

Units will range from 718 to 1,296 square feet. Twelve will be affordable housing. Tenants can choose from one, three, and five-year leases. Rents are expected to range from about $1,900 to $3,600 a month. Princeton has senior affordable housing, but Copperwood is the first market-rate senior housing development in the town.

For Mr. Harris, the development process represents a model of public/private citizen partnership. “Hillier’s cooperation is a model of what every developer in Princeton should do, and what every developer in Princeton should be urged if not required to do by Princeton elected officials,” he said, “including present applicants.”


January 25, 2012

People for Princeton Ridge Thanks Sustainable Princeton for 2011 Award

To the Editor:

People for Princeton Ridge, Inc., wishes to thank Sustainable Princeton and its nominating committee for honoring us with one of its awards for 2011. We also wish to thank the hundreds of Princeton residents who supported us during our negotiations.

We have been part of a remarkable collaboration between private citizens, municipal officials, and business people. We thank our co-recipients — Township attorney Ed Schmierer for his hours of text-work and advice; we thank developer Bob Hillier not only for his donation of 17 acres of land for open space but for his eagerness to redesign his plans with the public interest in mind (using more clustered buildings, thus leaving fully 80 percent of land as open space). Together, we all reached a common understanding: a healthy environment is an economic as well as civic benefit to the welfare of our habitat and all its creations, including the trees, the rocks, and the eastern box turtle — who cannot speak for themselves, whose languages we must learn. The Princeton Ridge Preserve, adjoining the property we all worked so hard to achieve an environmentally smart use of land, testifies to the power of collaborative efforts, needed now more than ever.

We have all benefitted from the direction and enthusiastic oversight that Sustainable Princeton has been providing. The sheer number of awards made this year shows the important work being done by all our citizens, many of them representing civic collaborations. But there is more work to do.

Princeton is virtually built-out; few properties remain to develop. One of them is a 98-acre parcel on Herrontown Road (Block 1001), more or less across the street from the new Westerly Road Church site that is soon to be unwisely decimated. This tract is part of the environmentally sensitive Princeton Ridge: heavily wooded, with steep slopes. We hope that any developer will honor both the natural habitat land and the public interest of the community by setting aside as much open space as possible, respecting the area’s natural features (not interfering with the steep slopes), and by using clustered development to achieve these ends.

PPR hopes that the present owner and the likely developer will heed the splendid collaboration between municipal, civic, and business interests that enabled us to achieve the creation of the Princeton Ridge Preserve — and will, by proper consultation with municipal officials, choose to respect the public interest.

Let us all collaborate in preservation and recycling. Let us end the habits of waste and unnecessary destruction.

Daniel A. Harris, Jane Buttars

People for Princeton Ridge, Inc.