To the Editor:

New Jersey’s State Senate is considering a bill freeing private universities like Princeton from needing planning-board approval for expansion — like Princeton’s $300-million performing-arts classrooms. This means that any land the University can buy, it can exempt from property tax.

Since public colleges can already develop without municipal approval, private colleges shouldn’t need approval either, according to the bill. The approval process is often “quite time consuming and expensive,” the bill says. It can delay “important educational programs and facilities for students” and divert “critical funding away from educational purposes.” A university’s “vital public mission should not be unduly limited or restricted” by the municipality that hosts it.

But if the bill passes, couldn’t universities limit or restrict their municipalities? The new legislation tries to correct this new imbalance: exemption from planning approval “must be exercised in a reasonable fashion.” Private universities contemplating development must still “allow for input in order to minimize potential conflicts with local governmental interests.”

I no longer expect Princeton University to act in “a reasonable fashion,” however. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard Vice President Durkee “allow for input” by saying “We’d be happy to look at that,” I’d be happy too.

Everyone in Princeton supports the arts. But the University’s proposed Arts “and” Transit “Neighborhood” still needs planning approval:

Would a new 75-seat dance studio, 75-seat black box theater, and 80-seat “orchestra rehearsal room” benefit us substantially?

Would bulldozing every inch of land between Alexander Street and the Dinky tracks, from University Place halfway to Faculty Road, improve our environment?

Would moving the Dinky station out of light traffic into horrendous traffic lessen our carbon footprint?

Could the University build its performing-arts classrooms somewhere else?

Even on Alexander, could it build those classrooms without moving the Dinky?

Would off-street parking much farther downhill benefit McCarter Theater?

Would a restaurant four blocks from Nassau Street help downtown merchants?

Suppose you answered every question in the University’s favor. Should the University’s expansion always be unrestricted?

To read the bill, visit www.njleg.state.nj.us/2012/Bills/S2000/1534_I1.PDF. And, for the names and phone numbers of our new District 16 legislators, see www.njleg.state.nj.us/districts/districtnumbers.asp#16. Then you can really have input.

Anne Waldron Neumann

Alexander Street