Ron Connor of Princeton Township
The following letter was sent to the members of the Princeton Township Committee:
Following is a reply to the township and to the Township Planner, Mr. Solow, on the need for senior housing in Princeton, as raised by questions posed to you by Daniel A. Harris in his letter of Nov. 18, 2007.
”The 2000 US Census reported that 26.3 percent of the township’s population (4,219 persons) is over the age of 55. Clearly there is a demonstrated need for senior housing.”
There are numerous gross assumptions about this census data and whether or not it demonstrates a need. This is seven-year-old data. Based on the 2000 data home builders would be eager to build, and they are not. Home prices had been stagnant for almost a decade after a decline in 1992. Prices have not been stagnant for the last seven years. As we all know, real estate has experienced a historic run up since 2000 based on a pent-up demand as well as aggressive reduction of interest rates after 9/11 that effectively made homes much cheaper and encouraged a host of new and extremely profitable products (and risky as we have now learned) in the secondary mortgage market.
All of the above factors are simply no longer in existence. Buyers have thinned out, mortgage rates have risen, jumbo loans have risen more and inventory of homes has more than doubled. By making this statement based solely on the 2000 census Mr. Solow assumes or suggests we are still in an expanding (booming) real estate market. We are not. At this point that is a well accepted fact.
Before we destroy open space, a land trust the community would rather preserve, I ask the township to collect the data necessary in order to make the statement: “clearly there is a demonstrated need for senior housing.”
Other questions to be answered:
A) Have these 55-plus residents migrated out of state or to Stonebridge or to other age restricted housing?
B) Do they WANT to move to a two-bedroom condo with no continuing care features?
C) Can they even afford a new 1,800-square-foot condo? And did the 2000 census data tell us that?
The price of a home (affordability) in 2000 no longer resembles the price today even adjusting for inflation. (My calculations based on the price of new construction selling in 2007 puts the value of a two-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot condo in Princeton at $600,000 to $650,000 minimum).
While we are playing with numbers; how about the 73.8 percent that were under 55 in 2000? That’s a majority right? What do they want?
Or more importantly: How about the 24.4 percent that were under 18 in 2000?
It seems to me that some of our elected officials have not been spending time in the excellent schools we’ve cultivated in Princeton since they would learn that our children DO NOT want us grown-ups to develop what they understand to be our natural habitat. I know that many of the kids at Littlebrook Elementary School in Princeton can articulate quite clearly the need to leave wetlands, marshlands and natural habitat un-disturbed and preserved for their generation and future generations.

