PRINCETON: Firm hired for hospital site records

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
   An independent consultant will assist the regional Planning Board by reviewing environmental records concerning the former Princeton hospital site, where a 280-unit apartment building is proposed.
   The Township Committee voted, 4-0, Monday to hire Sovereign Consulting Inc., which was to start work this week. The vote came less than a week after Borough Council rejected hiring the firm.
   The consultant will look at various environmental records and recommend whether any future testing or other action is necessary. Township officials, who said Sovereign would do no environmental testing as part of the contract, have questions about underground storage tanks and possibly abandoned septic tanks.
   Township Committeeman Bernard P. Miller, a Planning Board member hearing the AvalonBay case, said Monday he thought an “independent” assessment was important.
   The Sovereign contract for the work is capped at $2,990, an amount AvalonBay, the developer of the site, will pay for, although the firm has objected.
   This latest development comes as the Planning Board is in the midst of deciding whether to approve AvalonBay’s plan for the site. AvalonBay was before the Planning Board on Nov. 15, and is due back Dec. 6.
   AvalonBay senior vice president Ronald S. Ladell reacted Tuesday to the Township Committee’s vote.
   ”We think that both AvalonBay and Princeton Hospital have provided information regarding the environmental status about the property above and beyond what would be required for most land-use applications,” he said in a phone interview.
   Mr. Ladell has objected to the Planning Board seeking a third-party consultant. He has said the issue of underground tanks falls under the purview of the state Department of Environmental Protection.