By Anne Levin

On October 19, Princeton’s Planning Board heard a presentation on the new Community Master Plan. Public comment was not part of that meeting, but residents will be able to ask questions and air their views of the plan at a public hearing on November 9.

Municipal staff and consultants have been working on the current version of the plan for the past year and a half. Efforts to engage the public during the process have included surveys, interviews, open house events, and special listening sessions. Details are available at engage.princetonmasterplan.org.

New Jersey law requires that a Community Master Plan, a kind of municipal road map for land use and development with details about circulation, hazard mitigation, climate resilience, conservation, utilities, and most aspects of the built and natural environment, be updated every 10 years.

Princeton needs more housing, especially small dwelling units, said consultant Michael Sullivan of the firm Clarke Caton Hintz. The overall goals for land use in the plan are not for overdevelopment, but “are to create a unified zoning ordinance, focus higher residential density within and around the downtown and in mixed-use centers, and maintain progressively lower densities outside the downtown,” he said.

The plan recommends that several lots in town be considered for zoning of from one to four units each. Removing barriers to increased residential density would provide greater opportunities for economic development, Sullivan said. Justin Lesko, the town’s municipal planner, stressed early in the presentation that the new plan does not allow for unlimited growth. “We’re not disrupters,” he said.

Referring to the need for more housing for the “missing middle,” Sullivan projected photographs of existing housing in Princeton, including large houses on Wiggins Street that have been converted to multi-family dwellings, townhouses on Mercer Street, and apartments above stores on Nassau Street.

Sullivan said the plan directs new housing away from areas of remaining open space, and protects environmental features.  The plan “wants to grow not by coming in and creating midrise development everywhere,” he said. “It wants to sensitively and thoughtfully allow for the

integration of this missing middle. We’re not talking about redevelopment. We’re talking about sensitive, intelligent, incremental infill and allowing it to happen within neighborhoods at a scale and spatial character that reflects that neighborhood; spatial character that everybody desires in those neighborhoods.”

Members of the Planning Board asked questions about different aspects of the proposed plan, from standards for density to the need for more playing fields.

If the plan gets approved on November 9, “nothing changes overnight,” Lesko said. “It’s the end of the
beginning.”

Further analysis and discussions would follow in response to public comment. Princeton’s current land use map, which is from 1996, “reflects the zoning of the time,” Lesko said. “This is the starting point to have those discussions.”

The November 9 public hearing is at 7 p.m., and is virtual. Visit princetonnj.gov for the link.