The Princeton Battlefield Society has filed a lawsuit to block the Institute for Advanced Study’s (IAS) plan to build faculty housing on land it owns bordering the Princeton Battlefield. Filed in Superior Court in Trenton last Thursday, April 5, the suit says that the project, which was approved by the Regional Planning Board last month, would destroy the site of General George Washington’s historic counterattack against the British during the 1777 Battle of Princeton.

The suit also states that a 1992 settlement agreement between the Institute and Princeton Township took away the Institute’s right to build on the site. “This was addressed in the Township meeting by our lawyer, and refuted with a statute that says we do indeed have the right to build residences for our faculty,” says Christine Ferrara, senior public affairs officer at the IAS.

The Institute plans to build 15 faculty homes, eight of which are townhomes, on seven acres bordering the battlefield. An additional 10 acres adjacent to the Park would be preserved as open space. The focus of four packed Planning Board meetings since last fall, the plan was amended after suggestions by historians James McPherson and David Hackett Fischer to reduce the size of one house, preserve more open space, and move the tree line screening the houses. The historians, who met with IAS director Peter Goddard to try and mediate between the Institute and the opponents to the plan, also recommended building a path through the Institute property with interpretive signage commemorating the Battle of Princeton.

It was that amended version that was approved by the Planning Board on March 1. The Battlefield Society says it will separately appeal that decision.

The opponents of the project maintain that the development “will completely obliterate the Battlefield site that has remained untouched for the last 235 years,” said Bruce Afran, attorney for the Battlefield Society, in a press statement. “The Institute housing plan will destroy what is probably the most significant Revolutionary War site left in the United States along with critical archaeological and historical evidence.”

The Battlefield Society members say further that the project will bury important artifacts under a 10-foot artificial plateau, and destroy valuable wetlands. “The proposed cluster housing project will destroy one of the most valuable archaeological sites in the United States,” says Battlefield Society president Jerald Hurwitz, adding that the 1992 agreement denied the IAS the power to build cluster housing on the site since cluster housing was not in the E-2 zoning code at the time of the settlement. Cluster housing was not approved in E-2 zones until 10 years later, the complaint states.

The plan’s opponents say they will also take legal action regarding unreported wetlands on the site they say the Institute did not disclose when it sought permission from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to build the houses. “These wetlands were mapped by the Institute itself in 1990,” Mr. Afran said, “but they were not disclosed by the Institute when it applied for permission to build the current housing project.”

Responding to the allegations, Ms. Ferrara said, “The unanimous approval of the Planning Board certainly speaks to the fact that we have what we need to move forward. And the plan approved with amendments by Mr. Hackett-Fischer and Professor McPherson yields the greatest solution for the Battlefield itself in terms of enhancing it with additional open space, interpretive signage, and pathways for the public.”