Ridge zoning change aligns with State Plan

Contested site on Mount Lucas Road deleted from plan.

By: David Campbell
   Following a recommendation by state smart-growth planners, the Township Committee on Monday night voted 4-1 to approve an ordinance that deletes a contested site off Mount Lucas Road from a zoning overlay approved by the committee about a year ago. The overlay is intended to promote high-density senior housing on the environmentally sensitive Princeton Ridge.
   A pending lawsuit by neighbors will likely be "rendered moot" by the deletion of the roughly 20-acre parcel off Mount Lucas Road near Herrontown Road, said Deputy Mayor William Enslin, who attended a closed-session discussion of the suit by the Princeton Regional Planning Board on Thursday night.
   According to Mr. Enslin, many neighbors are pleased with the deletion, but some who oppose an accompanying zoning overlay that promotes up to 140 senior-housing units on a 20-acre site off Bunn Drive near McComb Road may seek to continue with the litigation.
   Tom White of Friends of Princeton Ridge, the group that filed the lawsuit in February 2002, described the overlays as "spot zoning" and "ill-conceived."
   Senior advocate Eleanor Angoff retorted, "This is the closest we’ve come to senior housing in Princeton."
   In December 2001, the Township Committee approved two controversial overlay zoning ordinances that critics warned violated Princeton’s center designation under the State Development and Redevelopment Plan, prompting formal complaints by the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club and others.
   The ordinances modified existing zoning to permit high-density housing for seniors on a 30-acre site off Mount Lucas Road and Route 206; the Mount Lucas site near Herrontown Road; and the Bunn Drive site.
   The two Mount Lucas sites are outside the regional-center boundary in an area designated Planning Area 5, or most sensitive, under the State Plan.
   The amending ordinance approved Monday night lowers the permitted density on the remaining Mount Lucas site from a maximum of 150 to up to 80 units and deletes the option to build multi-family housing there.
   The ordinance also increases buffering on the two remaining sites from abutting residential properties.
   In November, the state Office of Smart Growth asked the township, under the threat of withdrawing state funding, to delete the Mount Lucas site farthest from the border of Princeton’s center designation area.
   On Thursday night, the Planning Board endorsed the modifying ordinance with recommendations, with board member Wendy Benchley dissenting.
   Recommended changes, which the Township Committee approved Monday night, included identifying "unsubstantial" inconsistencies with Princeton’s Master Plan and creating a greater setback at the Bunn Drive site from Hilltop Park.
   Township Committeewoman Casey Hegener cast the lone dissenting vote Monday night, saying she would like to see residential setbacks increased in the overlay zones.