What We're Reading: One Proposed Princeton Apartment Building; Two Opposing Views

Princeton, NJ – In a lot of towns, a letter to the editor from two acclaimed historians condemning a proposed new apartment complex in a historically significant neighborhood would have been the last word on that subject.

The historians are James M. McPherson, who won the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1989 for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, and Sean Wilentz, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005), whose interests also include social history. Wilentz is the author of Bob Dylan in America and won a Grammy nomination for his liner notes to Dylan’s official “Bootleg Series” release of his 1964 concert at New York’s Philharmonic Hall.

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In their letter to the Town Topics published on October 16, McPherson and Wilentz called the proposed new apartment project at the corner of Stockton Street and Hibben Road an “irreparable act of vandalism” to the neighborhood, which contains landmarks dating back to pre-Revolutionary War days. Even though the project has passed all of its regulatory hurdles to date, McPherson and Wilentz urged not just Princetonians but concerned Americans to continue to fight “this latest threatened heedless spoilation.”

That closing argument had no sooner landed on our front porch than we received an e-mail notifying us of the revival of a grassroots pro-housing group led by Matt Mleczko, a Princeton University affiliated researcher who has been active in housing advocacy throughout his time as a Princeton graduate student.

Mleczko announced the once informal group called Princeton GROWS will take on a “consistent pro-housing voice at local meetings and work to promote a positive narrative around housing in Princeton.” The group is now planning a monthly newsletter and seeking supporters and volunteers.” But, Mleczko said “this goes beyond a website and newsletter. I’d say the idea of organizing people around this issue in the form of a committed volunteer civic group is the new and needed thing.”

And did Mleczko have any thoughts on the letter to the editor challenging the new housing on the former Princeton Theological Seminary site? Of course, he did. Below is the letter to the editor, followed by the response from Mleczko and Princeton Grows.

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New Development Should Be Balanced with Appreciation of Princeton’s Historic Distinction

To the Editor:

Nestled inside historic Princeton, set off from the town’s illustrious university, Gilded Age mansions, and touristy downtown, sits a small residential neighborhood of exceptional importance to the nation’s heritage. Located beside what was once the King’s Highway, it includes, within a quarter-mile radius, homes that served as permanent or temporary residences to renowned figures ranging from James Madison and Alexander Hamilton to Albert Einstein. At one end is Frog Hollow, site of an important engagement in the pivotal Revolutionary War Battle of Princeton in 1777. A former farmhouse nearby stood witness to that battle; it was also the family home, pre-Morven, of Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The neighborhood’s streets include numerous significant examples of early domestic architecture, including several built in the mid-1830s by the celebrated designer Charles Steadman. Generations of civic-minded Princetonians have maintained scrupulous stewardship of the area, obtaining historical registry listings and historic neighborhood designations, safeguarding what the town has regarded as one of its irreplaceable treasures.

Now, evidently, that stewardship is to be repudiated. A private developer has gained official approval to construct a massive high-end complex of 238 rental units and town houses in the heart of the neighborhood that will obliterate its historic character. The structures will reach potentially as high as 70 feet, dwarfing and shrouding homes built to modest 17th, 18th, and 19th-century scale. Its massive bulk will encroach badly, reaching within two feet of one of the neighborhood’s historic buildings, designed by another master architect, Rolf Bauhan. An underground garage for hundreds of vehicles will present untold problems ranging from traffic congestion and pollution to obstruction of groundwater and flooding. Centuries-old foundations will be imperiled. Numerous matchless old trees will be bulldozed.

An alternate proposal for the site, on a scale and density appropriate to the district and consisting of 100 percent affordable housing — thereby offering far more low-income residences than the current project’s minimal 20 percent state mandate — has been dismissed by the responsible local authority.

Objections to the project including citizens’ testimony at public hearings — arbitrarily limited to three minutes each — have met with hostile, even threatening responses from local officials as well as ugly false insinuations about the critics’ motives. Pretexts for the project have fluctuated wildly under criticism, from puffery about the supposed “walkability” of the proposed complex to dubious assertions about expanding the numbers of “missing middle” income residents.

Instead of advancing development with a balanced appreciation of Princeton’s historic distinction, a combination of private profit-driven development and secretive municipal complicity is about to complete an irreparable act of vandalism. Brutal lessons from decades ago — the destruction of the original Pennsylvania Station in New York City, for example — go unheeded.

Having protected the Princeton Battlefield, the time has come for concerned Americans, not just Princetonians, to express their concern about this latest threatened heedless spoilation and for public officials — local, state, and federal — to act.

James M. McPherson

Randall Road

Sean Wilentz

Edgehill Street

Response from Matt Mleczko, pro-housing advocacy group Princeton GROWS

I appreciate that people have strong feelings about this issue and care enough to weigh in, but it’s about time that we commit to a more productive discourse about housing in Princeton, which is part of the motivation behind Princeton GROWS. Accusations that the sensible reuse of a vacant site in the middle of a growing municipality in desperate need of more housing will “obliterate” a neighborhood or amounts to “vandalism” is hyperbolic and undermines collective action to solve an urgent social issue.

A few points worth considering:

Historic preservation and housing development are not mutually exclusive goals. The Princeton Theological Seminary redevelopment does not inhibit the enjoyment of the many landmarks that make Princeton a unique place.

But let’s also remember that the vibrancy and character of a place is more than just its lovely buildings – it’s ultimately about its people and their connection to one another. What’s more, comparing the PTS redevelopment – which seems designed to enhance the surrounding area – to the destruction of the old Penn Station is an unfair comparison, but one that illustrates how warped our conversation around historic preservation has become.

Plenty of evidence suggests that we’ve overcorrected for very real development mistakes of the past by making it nearly impossible to build a sufficient amount of multifamily housing anywhere. Careful observers of this issue know this is not an isolated incident. When one realizes that multifamily developments around Princeton regularly elicit dissent regardless of their characteristics, one can start to see the problem more clearly.

The evidence is abundantly clear that restrictive, inflexible, and ultimately exclusionary rules that undermine multi-family housing developments like this are a major contributor to our housing crisis. It’s curious that critics of multi-family housing development are quick to engage in grand speculation about traffic congestion, stormwater runoff, and the like and also sometimes quick to dismiss what we do have evidence of – that more multi-family housing construction promotes walkability and affordability.

Likewise, the referenced 100 percent affordable development sounds great in theory, but is not a realistic alternative when there’s no plan to finance it. That does not mean that there should be no guard rails or that we cannot compromise on site plan details or that we can’t work towards better ways of financing affordable housing. But these debates need to be informed by the scale and urgency of the issues of housing unaffordability and segregation – urgent issues that we have created. If we care about solving these problems, we need to do our part now.

So in that sense, I agree with one aspect of this letter – let’s call on our local, state, and federal leaders to act and address our housing crisis by enacting just housing policies that promote more equitable housing opportunities for our neighbors.

Matt Mleczko

For more information on Princeton GROWS visit its website .

Interested residents can also sign up for the group’s newsletter .

Organizations that have signed on as community partners of the new Princeton GROWS include Not In Our Town Princeton, Resistencia en Acción NJ, and Princeton Future. TAPinto Princeton editor Richard K. Rein also serves on the volunteer board of Princeton Future.

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Have a comment or story suggestion? E-mail rrein@tapinto.net .

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