By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Institute for Advanced Study is giving indications that it might construct faculty housing before courts have ruled on legal challenges that the Princeton Battlefield Society has brought to stop the project, the attorney for the Society said Monday.
Public interest lawyer Bruce Afran said there is a construction trailer and backhoe on the Institute property, part of the Revolutionary War battleground that advocates want to protect. He said he contacted the Institute attorney, Chris Tarr, on June 8 but did not get a direct answer on whether the research institute plans to start work.
He said he would seek a court injunction to stop any construction, a measure that he also would seek if the Institute is not forthcoming about its intentions.
For its part, a spokeswoman for the Institute directed a reporter to the statement the Institute issued last week.
“The Institute is pleased that it has received all necessary approvals for its long-awaited Faculty housing project, for which activity is about to begin,” it read in part.
The Institute is trying to build 15 units on faculty housing. The Battlefield Society counters that the project would destroy a section of the battlefield where George Washington staged his winning counterattack.
