Daniel A. Harris of Princeton
We want to thank everyone who has contributed so generously to the extraordinary Campaign to Save Princeton Ridge. You have worked tirelessly for the past several months—donating your time, efforts, and resources for strategies to create a sustainable Princeton, gathering signatures on our Petition, doing all the necessary work required for a coordinated effort.
We thank the Princeton community for your attentive support as we try to save a portion of the extended Princeton Ridge. We should all take modest pride in our eagerness to teach and learn about the economically invisible but huge value (to the community) of sensible land management.
Although Princeton Township Committee voted unanimously to enact the illegal and flawed ordinance to permit age-55+ housing on the Lowe tract, the signatures on the Petition to jettison the ordinance and down-zone the Ridge have continued to mount up. As of February 1, the number of signers from Princeton alone was 1,490 (2,099 overall) — three-quarters of the votes needed to elect someone (a new person) to Township Committee. That is no mean achievement.
We thank everyone for this great outpouring of support. Do not be disheartened by the vote: it was but one moment in an ongoing tussle. The campaign, as announced at the Township Committee meeting on January 28, will not surrender its intent to fight this dangerous ordinance, which preemptorily contravenes all the Princeton Master Plans of half a century in their explicit aim to protect the Ridge and other environmentally fragile areas.
None among us oppose legitimate senior housing; all of us (many of whom are seniors) oppose high-density building on any site environmentally unsuited to development. You may all find new documents submitted for the public record at www.saveprincetonridge.com (“Princeton Ridge Facts”), including the significant Memorandum of Law drawn up by Katherine V. Dresdner, Esq.
We thank you also, in advance, for voicing your concerns about the site-plans (from Robert Hillier or any developer) that the Regional Planning Board may review. Our goals in that review will be to stipulate a LEED Silver certification for the construction, a deed-restriction on not less than 8.5 “undisturbed” acres (so that no developer can ever destroy that remaining forest), and protections for the fragile wetland parcel on the south side of Bunn Drive.
We know that you will again come forth — as you have for so many recent Township Committee meetings — with environmentally and socially sound reasons for your arguments.
The campaign will continue to work to achieve reasonable and environmentally sustainable land-use throughout the Ridge area. We hope you will all join us again as we enlarge our numbers to make Sustainable Princeton not a phrase to be trashed but a genuine reality.
Daniel A. Harris
Dodds Lane
Princeton
