At a meeting of Princeton Council Monday night, several residents of the neighborhood surrounding the construction site where the developer AvalonBay is building an apartment complex voiced strong concerns about chemical smells. Citing migraine headaches, sore throats and other unsettling effects, they urged the governing body to take action to make the Witherspoon Street site safer as construction continues.

Municipal staff members said they have been monitoring the site since strong odors were first reported on Wednesday, October 21. The smells were identified by the town’s health and engineering departments as coming from painting primer and top coat polyurethanes on the Henry Avenue parking garage, adjacent to the site. The Mercer County Division of Public Health was called in to help investigate the matter, and a Materials Safety Data Sheet was posted on the town’s website.

Mayor Liz Lempert was among those who smelled the substance last week. “The list of materials was alarming,” she said of the data sheet. Town administrator Marc Dashield said that the data sheet is meant for workers at the site. But Heidi Fichtenbaum, an architect who works in the green building industry and a resident of the neighborhood, disagreed. She added that just because the odor dissipates doesn’t mean the chemicals are gone.

Ms. Fichtenbaum, who lives on Carnahan Place, said she first smelled the odor last Wednesday while driving by the site in her car with the windows closed. “Even though the windows were closed, within five seconds my car was filled with toxic fumes,” she said, adding that she recognizes the smell because of the work she does. “I knew it was toxic right away.”

She said she could also smell the fumes coming from sewer grates at the bottom of her street, leading her to believe the chemicals had gotten into the sewer system. “In order for the smell to be that strong there has to be such a huge volume of this chemical in the air,” she said. “It is just unconscionable.” Princeton engineering director Bob Kiser said that the drains were inspected, but nothing unusual was detected. He attributed the smell in the drains to wind conditions.

Another neighborhood resident asked why work wasn’t shut down at the site as soon as the smell was detected. “What’ll it take? Someone passing out?,” he said. Princeton Health Commissioner Jeffrey Grosser said that since the painting was finished when he and his colleagues went to the site, there was no need to shut it down.

Henry Avenue resident Jennifer Lea Cohan said the fumes were overpowering last Wednesday when she walked over to Community Park Elementary School to pick up her two children. “I don’t scare easily at all,” she said. “But I wondered if I was going to pass out.”

While painting of the garage is finished, another round of strong odors will likely emanate from the site when the roofs are installed on the apartment buildings.

“That won’t happen until next year, and we want to coordinate with them [AvalonBay],” said Mr. Kiser, stressing that the town wants to be notified in order to alert residents before that work begins, possibly in January.

A resident of Jefferson Road told Council members he had suffered three migraine headaches he attributed to the construction site. “These fumes are disgusting,” he said. “This should never have been able to happen. They [AvalonBay] can’t be the ones to decide what happens in our neighborhood.”

Ms. Fichtenbaum said the chemicals used for the painting of the garage are “a known carcinogen and a neuro-toxin.” She urged Council to take action, even if it puts the town at legal risk. “People’s health is on the line,” she said. “That’s not okay.”

Councilman Patrick Simon commented that the site should probably have been treated as a hazardous material spill. Some members of Council thanked staff members for their diligence in monitoring the site. Councilwoman Jenny Crumiller asked if the town can get AvalonBay to use the least harmful adhesive when they begin work on the roofs. “We can recommend, but we can not enforce,” Mr. Dashield said.