By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton Regional Planning Board and developer AvalonBay are on course for a possible showdown if the board does not vote this week on the firm’s 280-unit apartment project proposed for the former Princeton Hospital.
The board was scheduled to have a hearing on Monday and a final one on Thursday for the redevelopment of the Witherspoon Street site. Beyond that, there are no other meetings the board has scheduled for AvalonBay.
Prior board meetings on the project have drifted deep into the night, usually lasting 3½ hours. The public still needs to get a chance to weigh in.
Board Chairwoman Wanda Gunning said Friday that she believes its important that community members be able to ask questions and for objectors to the project to get to make their case before the board. At the board hearing Dec. 6, attorney Rob Simon, representing objectors, criticized the “tight and unfair” schedule that is “enormously unfair to the process.”
Ms. Dunning declined to get into what would happen if the board does not finish the case this week. AvalonBay has said that it would not extend a Dec. 15 deadline for the board to act, although the board still could ask for an extension.
Still, Ms. Gunning said it would be hard to get a quorum for a meeting around the holidays given board members’ holiday travel schedules. But other outcomes are possible.
The case could be carried into 2013, although the current Planning Board is due to dissolve as of Jan.1 due to consolidation. A new board will be created to take its place in January. Also, the board has been advised by its lawyer, Gerald Muller, that it could reject the project if AvalonBay refuses to grant an extension and the public has not been given a chance to be heard.
The Planning Board is fast running out of days on the calendar to act on AvalonBay and complete all its other business. The board has a Dec.18 meeting to continue its hearing on Princeton University’s $300 million arts and transit project. As with AvalonBay, there are objectors to the university’s project.
In a separate matter, the environmental consultant hired to assist the Planning Board released his much-anticipated report last week. David J. Volz, principal of Cherry Hill based Sovereign Consulting Inc., looked at environmental records associated with the hospital site and inspected the interior of the building.
”The results of soil and groundwater investigations conducted to date at the former hospital facility do not indicate the presence of contamination,” he wrote Dec.5 to township engineer Robert V. Kiser.
Elsewhere in his report, Mr. Volz said the presence of underground storage tanks “at this site should in no way prevent demolition and redevelopment of the hospital facility.” Furthermore, he concluded that a septic system on site “was almost certainly” removed when a garage was built.
On the question of asbestos contamination, Mr. Volz advised that AvalonBay hire an expert in managing “hazardous wastes and substances.”
Ronald S. Ladell, AvalonBay vice president, could not be reached for comment about Mr. Volz’s report.
Opponents of the project have raised concerns about possible environmental contamination.
”In the other states much more care is taken with the redevelopment of former hospital sites,” said Alexi Assmus, a member of Princeton Citizens for Sustainable Neighborhoods, a group opposed to the project. “Mature, large corporations would take much more environmental care with this project than the hospital and AvalonBay are currently.”
