Age 55 vs. 62
is not about
environment
The environmental impact of a proposed age-restricted housing project on Bunn Drive is an important policy question for Princeton Township. But so is the question of whether 62 is a commercially viable age threshold for market-rate senior housing in Princeton.
The issues are separate and distinct. The answer to one should not dictate the outcome of the other.
The environmental compatibility of a housing development with its proposed site is certainly determined, in part, by the number of people who will live in it. It does not, however, rest on whether they are over or under the age of 62.
The Bunn Drive senior overlay zone was originally approved as the site for a major age-restricted development by K. Hovnanian, which later abandoned the project. More recently, Princeton architect and developer J. Robert Hillier entered the picture, proposing a smaller development on the same site.
The dialogue between Mr. Hillier and the township has resulted in significant concessions to the concerns raised about the project’s potential impact on the environmentally-sensitive Princeton Ridge.
It has also resulted in a proposed ordinance that would lower the age restriction for the overlay zone from 62 to 55. That came after Mr. Hillier argued that the project would only be feasible, from a marketing standpoint, as a 55-and-over development.
Anyone with access to the real estate sections of New Jersey newspapers can quickly ascertain that Mr. Hillier is merely describing the reality of the housing market. Princeton may well be the last place in New Jersey where “age-restricted” housing means 62 and over rather than 55 and over.
Princeton, which has virtually no market-rate housing geared to seniors, has nothing to gain by clinging to a market-defying age restriction, except perhaps, the continued dearth of housing options for its maturing residents.
The argument that housing available to 55-year-olds would not help address the market for “senior” housing in Princeton strikes us as obtuse. Nothing would prevent 62-year-olds from purchasing such units. And, much as they might wish it so, the 55-year-olds who move into them will not be freezing their ages in the process. They will be “seniors” soon enough.
If it can be demonstrated that Mr. Hillier’s vision for the Bunn Drive site poses an unacceptable threat to the environment, the township should reject it on that basis. What it should not do is sidestep both the environmental issue and the housing issue by clinging to an age threshold for such projects whose most likely impact will be to discourage their construction.
