By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
A hearing by the Princeton Borough Zoning Board of Adjustment on a condominium project on Greenview Avenue proposed by J. Robert Hillier’s development company began last week and is to be continued at a later date, officials said.
The application calls for replacing four properties used for rental housing with a three-story condominium containing 11 market-rate and three affordable units.
Mr. Hillier’s company is seeking variances that will allow it to increase the floor-to-area ratio requirements in the site’s zone from 45 to 89 percent, the coverage area from 30 to 38 percent and the units per structure from three to 14 percent. The applicant is not seeking preliminary and major site plan approval at this time.
Because of time constraints, only two out of four of the applicant’s witnesses, Mr. Hillier and a traffic expert, provided testimony during a session last Wednesday, according to Borough Zoning Officer Derek Bridger.
Several residents had voiced either opposition or approval of the plan prior to Tuesday. One Greenview Avenue couple hired attorney Christopher DeGrezia to help them fight the project and Mr. DeGrezia cross-examined the applicant’s two witnesses, during the hearing.
”One of the primary contentions with this is it seems to completely ignore the recent changes made to the zoning ordinances in July 2006,” Mr. DeGrezia, said during a phone interview following the hearing. “The applicant is requesting a floor-area-ratio of 89 percent in a zone where the standard is 45, and if you include the proposed parking deck you’re looking at 125 percent, but even without including the parking deck, you’re requesting double of what’s allowed.”
”My clients think Mr. Hillier should have to go through getting amendments made to the ordinances and the Master Plan rather than to proceed to rezone the area by variances,” he added.
The hearing lasted 4½ hours and the continuation date has not yet been set, Mr. Bridger said.
