Town Needs to Take Measures to Ensure That Construction Projects are Not Endless
To the Editor:
Three years of construction noise. Two gas leaks requiring you to evacuate your home. Constant large construction vehicles navigating your narrow residential street, blocking traffic and interrupting your work or your sleep with backup alarms and other noise, starting at 7 a.m. Construction workers parking in front of your house, all day, every day, so that you and your other neighbors without driveways can’t park to unload groceries, or packages, or children. Damage to street trees. Standing water perfect for mosquitos. Loud talking or idling engines so close that you can hear details of the conversation and smell the exhaust as you sit in your living room.
The site, formerly a quiet duplex owned by the same family for decades, now has haphazard piles of construction materials in the front yard, set off by a temporary chain link fence that, after three years, seems permanent. Until this week, it had a sign pronouncing the arrival of new apartments for fall 2023.
On July 31, a police officer knocked on my door about 9 a.m. and told me to leave my house. It was the second time in a year that we had been forced out of our houses. There was no other emergency notification, although a Nixle alert did go out only that morning about a street closure for the digging that caused the leak.
As Princeton pushes to add housing, more and more neighbors will be confronted by construction projects next door. Hopefully, the addition of a single accessory dwelling unit will not take three years, but Princeton needs to take measures to ensure that they don’t. For larger projects, it could perhaps take the form of a construction bond, to be forfeited if agreed deadlines are not met, or compensation to neighbors for every violation of the construction code or major inconvenience. Prior notification of road closures should be required.
If you are concerned about this coming to your neighborhood, please let Council members know.