PRINCETON: Judge backs town in challenge to zoning

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
A Mercer County judge on Thursday upheld the legality of two zoning ordinances that Princeton municipal officials had adopted in 2011 to allow Princeton University to construct a massive redevelopment project in the area of Alexander Street and University Place.
Lawyers for the town and university hailed the decision of Superior Court Judge Douglas H. Hurd, who presided over a three-day bench trial in September to decide a lawsuit that three Princeton residents had filed two years ago challenging those ordinances.
The judge on Thursday issued a detailed oral opinion in the case, one that had included substantial supplemental briefings by lawyers after the trial. He rejected arguments that the ordinances amounted to spot zoning and other claims in the suit.
"The evidence is clear that plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden of demonstrating that the Borough and Township’s actions in adopting the ordinances were arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable," the judge said.
University lawyer Jonathan I. Epstein afterward declared the decision "a substantial victory for the university" and said the judge had issued "an excellent opinion."
"We’re pleased with the outcome," municipal attorney Trishka W. Cecil said.
Bruce I. Afran, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said Thursday that he saw "ample room" for an appeal and expected his plaintiffs to challenge the judge’s decision.
The lawsuit sought to have the judge throw out the ordinances that the former Princeton Borough Council and the Township Committee adopted in 2011 at the behest of the university. The school was looking to embark on its arts and transit project, a now $330 million redevelopment that includes a new Princeton train station, a restaurant and café, and the construction of academic buildings. The project was a chief priority of then-Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman, whose school got a $101 million donation from alumnus and billionaire businessman, the late Peter Lewis.
Plaintiffs Anne and Walter Neumann and Marco Gottardis sued the two towns and the university claiming the actions of the two governing bodies had amounted to illegal spot zoning. What’s more they argued it was "contract zoning" because borough officials said the university would withhold the full amount of a voluntary financial contribution from the university to the borough unless the zoning ordinance was adopted. Had the judge agreed with those contentions, the arts and transit project would have been stopped dead in its tracks.
Judge Hurd, instead, shot down all of those arguments. "Overall, the evidence shows that the ordinances are consistent with the Master Plan, advance the purposes of zoning and that both governing bodies comply with all procedural requirements of the Municipal Land Use Law," the judge said.
Princeton Councilwoman Jenny Crumiller was a member of Borough Council in 2011, and voted against the zoning ordinance. Contacted Thursday, Ms. Crumiller said she had "mixed feelings" about Judge Hurd’s decision. She said that on one hand, she continues to feel the Borough Council’s decision in 2011 was a mistake. Yet she said she was glad the town won the lawsuit, one that the consolidated town inherited after the borough and the township merged.
It was not immediately known how much money in legal bills taxpayers had to spend to have the municipality defend the litigation.
This was one of a handful of lawsuits that have been filed by a coalition of residents fighting the university and NJ Transit to stop the project and the subsequent relocation of the Dinky shuttle train. So far, the opponents have failed in every legal challenge.
Judge Hurd will have more to say on the matter. He will have to decide a lawsuit that was filed to overturn the approval that the Princeton Planning Board gave the university in 2012 for the project.