By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Architect and real estate developer J. Robert Hillier is seeking relief from terms of a deal that he had made with then-Borough officials 15 years ago to turn a former segregated public school and later nursing home into a residential building.
Hillier wants out of a requirement, contained in a developer’s agreement, that makes him sell as condominiums eight of the 34 apartments in his Waxwood development, on Quarry Street. Past borough officials have permitted the rental of the eight units — five of which have a preference for residents of the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood or their descendants.
He made his latest pitch, in November, to convert all eight to rentals, in a property he since sold earlier this year. Since then, a subcommittee of town officials has been exploring the issue, with the full council taking it up Wednesday, at a meeting that started at 8 a.m.
Hiller has proposed some options to the town. For instance, he would agree to increase the number of affordable apartments from three to seven. In another scenario, he would provide six affordable apartments and create a $400,000 equity fund for “qualified neighborhood residents” that they could use toward buying a home in the Witherspoon-Jackson section of town, for example.
“What I am providing is to take care of several folks who can afford to live here with these units and yet assist the community as a whole,” Hillier said at the meeting.
Officials did not make a decision this week, but pushed back the issue until Sept.25.
Should council decide to enforce the developer’s agreement, the units would have to be sold — something Hillier wants to avoid, so there are not part owners and part renters living there.
Hillier said he had sold the Waxwood to Avner Netter, in March, for an undisclosed sum. They reached a deal in which Hillier has a 15-year master lease giving him all the responsibilities he had as its owner.
But Councilwoman Heather H. Howard raised question wanting to make sure Netter would be bound by any deal the town reaches with Hillier. She wants to see something in writing, something Hillier did not object to. Hillier said Netter, who was not at the meeting, “knows what I’m proposing.”
Earlier in the meeting, Hillier indicated he had sold the Waxwood to help with restoring properties he owns along Witherspoon Street.
“I want Witherspoon Street to return to the street that it was when I was kid and delivering flowers to the hospital for my mother,” said Hillier, whose mother had owned a local flower shop. “It’s run down. To fix it up, especially with a historic district, it takes money.”
He said later, “we haven’t made anything” on the Waxwood.
One of the issues that council will have to decide is whether to continue the so-called “Princeton preference,” a restriction that was made part of the developer’s agreement in 2002.
Hillier envisioned the Waxwood development — first conceived as a condominium project — as a way to “slow” the loss of black residents from that historically black section of town. To that end, five “foundation units” were set aside for people who lived in the neighborhood for “at least” 10 years or are a “direct descendant of such a neighborhood resident,” the agreement read in part. Councilwoman Jo S. Butler raised whether that restriction amounted to discrimination, and asked for a legal opinion from the town’s lawyer.
“That was one of the things we wanted to have clarity on before council meets on” Sept. 25, Mayor Liz Lempert said after the meeting.
Asked if she thought the neighborhood preference was legal, she replied, “I’m going to leave that for the attorneys.”
“I think that the intention of it is to preserve the community by making it easier for residents who have ties to the community to stay in Princeton,” she said. “The intention is certainly not to be exclusionary. The intention is the opposite. It’s to maintain community.”
Hillier has indicated two foundation units are empty, leading Butler to ask why he does not lower the rent, now at $1,350. Hillier indicated there is no demand for them.
The apartment building has a long history in Princeton, once the site of the Witherspoon School for Colored Children when the school district was racially segregated. It continued to be a public school, until 1968, and subsequently was made into a nursing home, according to the Historical Society of Princeton. After Hillier bought it, he renamed it after former school Principal Harry Waxwood Jr.
