PRINCEON: New legal action looms in battlefield fight

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
   The Institute for Advanced Study’s plan to build faculty housing on land it owns near Princeton Battlefield is headed for another legal challenge.
   The institute sought approval from the Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission and a waiver of a commission rule since part of the proposed 15-unit project falls within a commission buffer zone. There is a tributary to the Stony Brook that goes into Canal State Park.
   The case was scheduled for a hearing Aug.15. But the commission lacked a quorum because former Princeton Township Mayor Phyllis L. Marchand, a commission member, recused herself from the case citing her past involvement in the matter as mayor and as a member of the regional Planning Board.
   The Princeton Battlefield Society, the group fighting the project, had asked Ms. Marchand to take that step.
   Her decision was key because the commission, which is supposed to have nine members, is down to five because there are four vacancies. Based on the law, the institute thinks it got its approval since the commission would have failed to act within a 45-day window from the time the application was deemed complete last month. The institute said last week that Sept. 2 is the end of the time frame.
   ”At that point, we do have approval,” said Christine Ferraro, a spokeswoman for the institute, in a phone interview Thursday. The Canal Commission said this week it agreed with that view.
   Ms. Ferraro said it is now a matter of working with the township on meeting the requirements that came with the Planing Board approval for the project earlier this year.
   But Bruce I. Afran, an attorney for the Battlefield Society, said a state Supreme Court decision says the law only applies when a board or commission intentionally refuses to act. He said that is not the case here.
   He said there is no way of knowing how the commission would have voted, noting the high burden the institute has to get permission to build in a protected area.
   Kip Cherry, first vice president of the Battlefield Society, said Monday that her organization planned to take the issue to court.
   This is the latest twist in a case that is already in litigation.
   In March, the Regional Planning Board approved plans for the institute to build 15 units of faculty housing on seven acres of its property on Einstein Drive. Aside from the housing, the institute proposed having a 200-foot-buffer zone adjacent to the Princeton Battlefield State Park. Also, 10 acres of land also adjacent to the park is scheduled to be preserved as open space.
   But in July, the Princeton Battlefield Society sued to overturn the Planning Board’s decision. The society said the property is “believed to be at the center of the winning counterattack” of the battle fought in January 1777.
   The Battle of Princeton was seen as a critical victory for the Colonials against the British. During the conflict, Gen. Hugh Mercer, the namesake for Mercer County, was killed.