The canopy over the municipal fueling station on Mount Lucas Road, which residents have claimed makes it look like a gasoline station, has been removed by the Municipality of Princeton.
The canopy was disassembled and removed during the week of April 6 by a crew from Independence Constructors. The company was awarded a contract for $61,277 for the job by the Princeton Council at its March 9 meeting.
The contract calls for the Bridgewater-based company to remove the canopy, install motion-activated LED lighting, extend the masonry walls to nine feet to shield the fuel tanks from view, and install a concrete pad behind the masonry walls to hide the emergency generator.
The Princeton Council agreed to remove the canopy at its April 22, 2019, meeting – nearly one year ago – after neighbors criticized the decision to install the fueling station at that location and the aesthetics of the fueling station.
The decision to remove the canopy grew out of an April 11, 2019, meeting with neighborhood residents, who told Mayor Liz Lempert and town officials that the last thing they ever expected to see was a fueling station – complete with a canopy and above-ground fuel storage tanks.
The neighbors called for the town to relocate the fueling station, but officials explained that they would not be able to do so.
At the April 11, 2019, meeting, Municipal Engineer Deanna Stockton told the residents that the canopy protects the police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and truck and school bus drivers from the rain while they are refueling the town’s vehicles.
At the meeting, Princeton officials assured the neighbors that steps would be taken to landscape the site and to hide the above-ground fuel tanks from view. But the residents were adamant that the canopy made the site look like a gasoline station and they wanted it to be removed.
There has been a municipal fueling station on the property at the corner of Valley Road and Mount Lucas Road since at least the early 1990s, Administrator Marc Dashield said. It served the former Princeton Township and then became the consolidated Princeton’s fueling station for its police cars, ambulances, fire engines and the Princeton Public Schools’ buses.
In the meantime, the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad outgrew its headquarters on N. Harrison Street. The town agreed to allow the squad to build a new headquarters on the municipally-owned property at the corner of Valley Road and Mount Lucas Road. The decision also meant relocating the fuel station pumps, Dashield said.
Former Municipal Engineer Robert Kiser and Robert Hough, the former director of Infrastructure and Operations, reviewed potential locations for the municipal fueling station, and decided to keep it on the same property but at a different location, Dashield said.
The decision to increase the storage capacity from 4,000 gallons of fuel to 6,000 gallons was a result of the town’s need to increase its resiliency and to improve preparedness during weather emergencies, Dashield said.
In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Princeton was without electricity for many days and there were problems with fuel deliveries, officials said. The town needs to ensure that it has an adequate supply of fuel for its fleet, including emergency services vehicles, according to officials.