October 6, 2007 Forum

Present: Clancy Scheid; Kristin Appelget; David Hauss; Chris Dorey; Mark Jeffries; Judy Hutton; Lori Heninger; Kyle Reynolds; Pam Hersh; Jenny Crumiller; Virginia Kerr; Kim Pimley; Edmund Keeley; Jaswant Gulati; Surinder Gulati; Colin Hill; Maggie Hill; Tom Wright Jr; Julia Coale; Walter Neuman; Charles E. Bush; David Nathan; Carlos Rodrigues; Zoe Anspacher; Ellen Posner; Janet Pickover; Ksenia Ulmer; Chip Crider; Barbara Trelstad; Matthew Hersh; Hank Siegel; Cindy Randazzo; Evelyn Geddes; Robert Geddes; Kevin Wilkes; Alyce Bush; Michael Floyd; Raoul Momo; Anne Neuman; Myrna Bearse; Connie O’Dea; Wilson Weed; George Cody; Francesca Benson; Agnes Sherman; Roger Sherman; Audrey Chen; Linda Sipprelle; Travis Linderman; Michael Mahoney; Kristen Callahan; Bob Louvulo; Andrea Stine; Betsy Hoover; Dave Petrick; Lynne Durkee; Evan Yassky; Winifred Hall; Francis Treves; Peter Morgan; Howard Silbersher; Charles Alden; Etta Steiner; Henry Steiner; Pat Ramirez; Tatiana Popova; Marcy Crimmins; Chris Pratico; Shirley Satterfield; Sheldon Sturges; Susan McCaskie; Roger Martindell; Sabine Wieland; David August; David Goldfarb; Andrew Koontz; Michael Greco; Roz Denard; Dawn Day; Steve Cohen; Bob Hillier; Bill Moran; Peter Kann; Susan Hockaday

Panel #1: Private.
Robert Durkee-Princeton University; Sandra
Persichetti-Princeton Community Housing;
J. Robert Hillier-Hillier Architecture; Shirley
Satterfield-Witherspoon Presbyterian Church;
Raoul Momo, Mediterra, Teresa’s & Witherspoon
Bread Company. Moderator: Peter Kann-Dow Jones

Panel #2: Public.
David Goldfarb-Borough Council; Lance Liverman
-Township Committee; Barrie Royce-Borough
Zoning Board of Adjustment; Tom Wright-Mayors
Institute/Regional Plan Association.
Moderator: Robert Geddes-Princeton Future

Kevin Wilkes, Moderator
Good morning. I welcome you to the Princeton Future Forum! My name is Kevin Wilkes. I am a member of the Council of Princeton Future. That sounds like a fancy title, but it just means that I am willing to do a lot of work for free. But my work is in the interest of the town. I want to introduce to you or read to you a list of my colleagues on the Council of Princeton Future so that you will have a sense of who we are. If you see us on the street, please stop and chat so that we can bring your issues to our Council meetings. Joining me on the Council is Charlotte Bialek,  Marvin Bressler, Robert Geddes, Susan Hockaday Jones, Peter Kann, Joanna Kendig, Katherine Kish, Raoul Momo, Yina Moore, Shirley Satterfield, Sheldon Sturges and Katherine Benesch has just joined us this fall. Membership in the Council is evolving and changes every year. People come on. They leave. People come on with fresh energy. Those that get exhausted after a few years step back a bit. This is a vibrant, evolving, growing group. Our purpose is to bring you together in meetings like this to discuss our town.  There are two things, I am going to do. For those of you who were here in June, and I recognize many faces from that meeting, 

I am going to breeze through the presentation I wasn’t able to give you then due to technical difficulty. Princeton Past. And then, Princeton Now.

Many of you know these historical images and I am not going to belabor them with comments. I just want you to look at them as we gaze at the years of Princeton development. I will point out that at the Battle of Princeton, some of the geometries of our town were already in place: Nassau St. The road to Rocky Hill which became Witherspoon St. Jugtown, or Queen’s Town, at that point. The intersection of Harrison & Nassau. King’s Town, now Kingston. Morven and the Stocktons were in place. Buildings along Nassau St were in place. In fact, Nassau St. was the old Assunpinck Indian Trail: Possibly, one of the oldest continually-traversed boulevards in our country. If you look at the upper left hand corner of these images, you see dates. You see 1849. Here is a map of Princeton wit a view of the university in the lower right hand corner. Nassau St is well-established. You see the road to Rocky Hill, known as African Lane. You see the neighborhood, we now call Witherpoon-Jackson. An aerial photograph from 1936. 1947. Starts to get significant growth. Post-WWII, it really exploded. Here is Nassau St in 1950. You see Palmer Sq. Lower Pyne was still in place. There was green there. 1956. Looking at the fields around the recently-completed Shopping Center. Here is the Land Use Plan 1957-. It became common in the 20th c to carve up land by uses.  Everyone used to work it out together. Still point towards single use in general. People say we’re built out.

There was a trolly that began at Hulfish St., went down African Lane, and the crossed over along the Johnson lands and went all the way to Trenton.

In large part the fabric of our neighborhoods is built at the scale in which it was originally built. The question is what will it look like in 2114 and 2024. It is possible to modify, expand, re-use existing buildings in the fabric of our community. Nassau St has accommodated everything from foot traffic to horses to stagecoaches to carriages to cars to bicycles. It wasn’t paved until the early part of the 20th c. It had angled parking on both sides of the street. Palmer Sq was started by Edgar Palmer, a benefactor of the University. His idea was to invest his fortune in Princeton. Unfortunately, the Depression came along and took up most of his fortune. Palmer Sq remained as his legacy. It wasn’t until the 1960’s that Palmer Sq was completed in its first plan. As you know, Palmer Sq continues to grow to day.

We can’t say when the final part of Palmer Square will be built. It is possible that it will turn out to be an 80 yr project. Many of the houses on Jackson St were moved further north to Birch Avenue. Many of the residents who were displaced were relocated.  There is still lingering anxiety in the community over these actions.

Baker St. was demolished for Palmer Sq. East

Jackson St. was demolished to make room for Palmer Sq. North.

We have made some major successes in our town. I want to dwell on the good before we get into the things that are annoying us. We have had successes. The town has worked together. Yes, there some wrinkles. Development has never come smoothly to Princeton. It has never come quickly. And it has never come without dissension.

Quark Park!

The Library & The Albert E. Hinds Plaza
This building we are in has become enormously popular. This room we are in is a community living room. A place where we can meet and join...to discuss things in an environment where we can see slides and movies and chat. It something of which we should be proud. This was a tough building to build. It was very expensive. It required commitment from the philanthropic community. The Library justly deserves our thanks for putting this important building downtown. More work is underway. The Arts Council is getting close. We have created little plazas, spaces and small gardens downtown. Places of respite. Places to sit and enjoy our community. Small things like fountains and parks tremendously enhance our town, even if the parks happen to be temporary. They can be witty and fun, whimsical and enjoyable. The town, I believe...and it may be a self-serving passion...needs more of these. We also have open space and parks that are dedicated to our history and memories of our forebears.

The Cemetery
Although Mr. Tulane wants to turn his back on the university, the rest of us enjoy the cemetery as a space to reflect upon our history and the people who have come before us. It is a resource, in our Princeton Future meetings, that more people have said they would like to see be woven into the walking fabric of the community. I understand that there concerns over some potential for vandalism. But I think that that is something as a community we can address and we can turn the Cemetery into an engaging open space.

Walkways
We have exciting, small, modest walkways in town. Mid-block alleys relieve congestion on our few sidewalks. The Chambers Walk access through town is one of my favorites: it does unfortunately run out of steam. But I think we can fix that. A number of us in the room have worked hard on the Tulane site. We will work hard to see that it rises to the level we expect in the Princeton community. The garage has met with success amongst a large numbe of people. Many of the merchants at our meeting in June said that their complaints about parking had largely evaporated. That is a miracle. Because I remember from my undergraduate days in the 70’s evryone complaining that they didn’t have a place to park. There were complaints and suggestions about rates. The garage I believe is a success.

Witherspoon St.
Yes, we have traffic congestion. At different times of the day, it is pretty difficult. But at other times of day, Witherspoon St is a pretty easy way in and out of town. There are improvements coming at the Wiggins/Witherspoon intersection that will make turning even better. We still need to pay attention to street-detailing in our town. There are areas that need TLC. Planting.

Princeton Future
And here is the real crux of what we want to discuss this morning. On June 16th, we had a meeting. I am going to give you a brief summary of what we discussed and the comments we heard from the public. However, if I were you, I wouldn’t trust me. I would go to Google Video and type in ‘Princeton Future’ in the video search and you can see the actual filmed tapes of the summaries of those events and you can listen to them. They were filmed by Michael Littwin. I would like to to introduce Michael, in the back of the room. We want to thank Michael for doing this work for us. [applause]. I urge you to check out his website: <princeton.tv>. Michael is a dedicated videographer of many of the events in our town. He has worked with us to put our public meetings at your disposal so you can watch them any time you want at your convenience, at home. I also want to thank Bill Howard of Triangle Repro. Bill printed for you, for all of you to have, a copy of the typewritten summaries of our table discussions in June. There is a tremendous resource of community comment in here. I urge you to read this. And the best thing we have done in Princeton Future for the town this year is to assemble these comments for everyone to read and think about and to  generate discussions. And I finally want to thank the Witherspoon Bread Company, Raoul Momo and his brother Carlo, who have generously donated the coffee and rolls at the back of the room. Please avail yourselves. Denny & Christine Ganarolo were instrumental in arranging this for us this morning. We thank them very much also.[Applause].

Retail Environment
We had five discussion tables on the 16th of June and we asked some of these questions...I will not read the questions from the braodside. At the Retail Environment table, we heard these things from the customers. This is a more or less direct taking of their comments. There things in these comments that are contradictory. We are not putting them out as our endorsed findings, we are putting them as things that the community said.

Customers said that they want stores to sell things that they want, meaning the residents, not the tourists. Students say that things are too expensive in town, except for Hoagie Haven, and, therefore, they saty on campus. “We like and wish to patronize local small businesses. We like family-owned businesses. We like to walk to our stores. But, carrying groceries needs a car, or delivery. Some are nostalgic for the small village business district. African Americans are not so nostalgic. They were not allowed to shop uptown. But, now, much of the African American commercial district has been wiped out. This is good and bad. Segregation is ended but local business entrepreneurship is losing its grip in that community in the face of escalating costs and values. We need to promote diverse commercial business ownership and we need to serve diverse cultural communities in a way that meets each community’s specific needs. Restaurants and bars are much better than they were 15-20 years ago.  We are ambivalent about chain/formula/mall-type stores in our town. Everybody, without exception, appears to miss Woolworths. Teenagers need work experience and need job training and need to be involved in the downtown life of the community. We need to provide discounts for students in our local stores. Stores should provide loyalty or affinity cards à la Small World’s coffee card. We need more music venues.

Now, the merchants said: escalating real estate prices and taxes are impediments to success. The garage has solved many parking complaints. Requirements for onsite parking are unreasonable. On site meaning on their particular business site. Zoning, health, & construction departments in the municipalities are not friendly. They make opening businesses unduly difficult, risky and time-consuming. Merchants say that the town is not affordable for employees...not to live ...not to park. The merchants need some love! The garbage collection system downtown is unworkable. It is random and it is a big problem, especially on the weekends. Students never leave campus and they don’t buy anything. The university does not buy locally. They do not patronize intown businesses other than food and booze. The Boro Merchants Association needs to work better and have greater participation. Independent businesses do well in this communiity. For example: Small World v Starbucks; Micawbers v Barnes & Noble; Whole Earth v Wild Oats; Hoagie Haven v Burger King.

Local is hip.

Parking & Transportation
Parking pressures have been more or less alleviated with the Spring St Garage. However, some improvements are needed to the garage: improved design at the entrances and exits. Restoration of free [subsidized] for the library. I put in ‘subsidizeed’ because there is no such thing at free parking. Library cards can be used to direct the costs of subsidized parking to Twp or Boro. Tiered pricing. Make it cheaper on the top floor. More expensive on the lower floors. Some people said “Plan for the next garage now!” The hospital uses remote parking with shuttle. And that system works very well. The hospital has parking in various satellite lots, including the shopping center. They give priority to their visitors and patrons to park in the garage at the hospital site. PU uses remote parking and a shuttle system to move their employees around. People believe we should adopt a similar model for merchant and employee parking downtown. People believe that we can use the combined Ys-Merwick-Stanworth sites and build a garage there, both for stakeholder and community use. And it can be combined with a shuttle and jitney service. For parking on the streets, people said we need more street parking for handicapped and elderly. People said parking at the Dinky and Princeton Junction is routinely difficult. Permit parking around the hight school has helped local residents and that is viewed...

...as a success. Some paeople said parking prices should be higher to consider the high price of providng parking on a downtown street. Hard to believe...but some people disgreed and think parking rates should be lower. Consider the convenience to shoppers of lower rates. Parking should be paid by merchant passes. Merchants could give a coupon  that gives you 30 minutes of parking. Strict parking requirements for residential development should be eased. PU provides free parking to the community on evenings and weekends. This needs to be promoted more. Many people did not know that. Some people think that the Chambers St garage should be expanded and a new floor added once the Palmer Sq North development is complete. Some people said we should work to allow fewer cars downtown period.

On public transportation, there was a lot of discussion about the potential of the new jitney and the shuttle networks that already exist in town. People believe they should be cheap. Frequent. Safe. Friendly. Reliable in all weather conditions. Marked and scheduled, with good signage. Comprehensive. They should include the Shopping Center. Senior housing points, municipal centers, athletic park facilities, hospital, remote parking sites and the Dinky. They should be coordinated with Princeton University, the hospital and other institutional shuttles. And, the last idea, possibly, there are two routes to the shuttle network. Two cross-overs for change and loops that go in different areas to prevent the incredibly long loop that would be needed to cover all of these areas in one pass. The Dinky is a hot topic. People believe that the Dinky service should be more frequent. People believe that the Dinky should be moved closer to the Downtown, not farther away. It should stop at the head of University Place, by the Old Town Toipics Building and its parking lot. And then at the new Arts District at the University’s garage...and then a new stop with satellite parking facilities at Faculty Road...and then at the Alexander Rd offices near Rt One. People believe that regional parking loads can be distributed along this rail line, providing lessened impact at any one stop. Some people believe that the proposed BRT along Rt One should could connect with the Dinky at Alexander. Some people believe that the Dinky should be eliminated and turned into the bus rt as part of the BRT network. Some people believe that the Dinky should use electric and not fossil fuels.

Circulation and sidewalks. People want to improve street walking safety, especially at Bayard/206. People don’t want anymore long haul trucks coming through our community. Some people believe that the proposed roundabouts will create more gridlock, rather than less. The cabs should have posted rates. Can car-pooling be instituted by major employer?

Preservation and Development
We spoke about presrvation and development. Much of the central business district is an historic district. It provides controls and complications. People believe that we should develop neighborhood conservation districts. This would be a midway level between a full-blown historic preservation district and its encumbrances and the standard zoning regualtions that exist in all districts of our towns. People want to emphasize neighborhood context with controls keyed to the existing conditions in the existing neighborhoods. People believe that zoning variances are undoing the intent of our land use regulations. They believe that they should be harder for people to get. People believe that higher density must be accompanied by sustainable growth principles in order to address the growing negative impacts of global warming.  We nedd opportunities to move around town without using our cars. They believe that we must balance the needs of the entire community with the needs of a specific neighborhood, or, all specific neighborhoods. Some people believe that we should address downtown creep into the adjacent residential neighborhoods. Some people we should set up mixed zoning districts...ie with shop owners living above their stores.  Seniors are being forced out of their homes into geriatric ghettos. This must be stopped. And Senior Affordable Housing must be brought closer to the downtown. Some people said “Stop architects from creating overcrowding and destroying the character of existing neighborhoods!” Witherspoon-Jackson is especially threatened. Some people...

...believe that lower density will only ensure higher cost of real estate and high income residents. Lower density will lead to less diversity. High density rental is different than high density owner-occupied. High density rental will lead to a downtown of bars and the ills that go with that culture. The proposed roundabouts will destroy the historic character of Bayard-Stockton and Nassau St. Many people believed that development should go ‘up’ in the downtown, rather than ‘out’. And, in general, it should go up to 5 stories in height. People argued that our landscape and green infrastructure is especially desirable and should be preserved with great effort....that our street trees should be replaced if they die...and generally augmented throughout the town.

Working & Living
We studied the issues of creating a town with a healthy living and working environment. People at that table came up with the following thoughts:
We need affordable housing that will be structured in a way that will allow preference for local community service personnel. Meaning our police, our firemen, our municipal workers, our junior-level employees, our teachers. The Council on Affordable Housing does not allow this as a policy. They believe we should work to change that. It was argued that we need business incubator space and flex-commercial space in our town, near the downtown, to hatch new business enterpises. They need to be where we live. Not out in So Brunswick.  Living and working together will reduce traffic, pollution and fossil fuel use. We need better opportunities for spouses to work in part-time jobs. The redevelopment of the medical center property represents an opportunity to develop live & work mixing. Please have senior housing at that location. And they said “Shop local”. Support our indigeneous small businesses. They said Princeton University should build housing for junior staff, retired faculty members and support their full participation in our civil society and not ship them off to Pennsylvania. Now, I know for a fact the university doesn’t actually ship them off to Pennsylvania! Most people make that choice on their own because that is what they can afford. They get a better deal for $200,000. They believed at this table that we should stop the gentrification in the Leigh-Birch and JW Neighborhoods.  We need to act with a common voice to develop practical policies that will allow live & work and people to retire in Princeton. They believe that we should set up a housing trust fund. They suggested that we put a 2% fee on all real estate transactions that would fund this non-profit that would be charged with the task of building local preference affordable housing. And, then convince all academic institutions of higher learning to contribute to the trust, and help administer this fund for their benefit as well as for the benefit of the community. Other people believe
that we should set up a land bank. Take that 2% fee and buy up all of the real estate and don’t let anyone build anything on it. And a few people said “You know there just too many governments in NJ! We have state, we have county, we have local...let’s get rid of one of them!”

Town & Gown
This table was contentious. But, contentious only in the broad assessment of the detriments and benefits. There was universal agreement that the university and all of our institutions of higher learning are a wonderful resource. Every citizen, without exception, was proud of the position of Princeton university, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Choir College and the Seminary as premier international centers for research and learning. Some people quibbled that frequently their attention is more focused internationally than on the community. Everyone agreed that the campus is beautiful, but some felt it is pushing into and taking over our neighborhoods. This is not good for the log term economic viability of our town. This is not good for promoting diversity in our town because it makes our neighborhoods shrink. The combined lot of institutions of higher learning do not pay their fair share of taxes to the local municipal coffers. Therefore they place a tremendous burden on the people who do pay. The citizens are paying more than their fair share. This comment was heard at many tables and, I am guessing, has been heard around your dinner tables for quite some time. However, someone said, and many agreed, “If the Uniiversity weren’t here, I wouldn’t be here!.” Some people said the university does its fair share. Some people said the university does not do its fair share. The university offers, cultural, athletic, children activities that benefit the entire town. Some said “Give ‘em hell!”. Some said “Give ‘em a hug!”.

Our goals today…
It seems as if you sift through all of this, and if you had to reduce this to a challenge. I believe our goal is to plan for a community that has appropriate scale to lead a sustainable, affordable and fulfilling life for all of us.

I want to read you the quote I like from the famous community activist in Detroit, Grace Lee Boggs:

“I think we are not looking sufficently at what is happening at the grassroots in this country. We have not emphasized sufficiently the cultural revolution that we have to make among ourselves in order to force our government to do differently. Things do not start with governments. It begins with projecting the notion of a more human human being, ie. A human being who is more advanced in the specific qualities only human beings have: creativity, consciousness, and self-consciousness: a sense of political and social responsibility.”

So, let’s discuss the viabilty, the sustainability and the affordability of our governments, our businesses, our institutions and our workforce and our fellow residents. And, let’s discuss the diversity of people and places in our town, of businesses & instituions and of housing and our neighborhoods.

I am now going to invite our first panel to join us upfront.

[Applause]

You all have at your chairs a map which we have created to suggest some of the potential sites that are in play in town. And, you have a notecard on which you can write questions. We are going to have a panel of the private, business & institutions...and, our second panel will be of the public, with elected and appointed officials. At the veyr end, we are going to have an open question & answer period. If you’d like to pose a question during our panels., please write them down. And Sheldon & I will be walking around and you can hand us the questions  and we will give them to the moderators.

I want to introduce my colleagues on Princeton Future, the moderators of the panels: the co-founder of Princeton Future and former Dean of the School of Architecture, and a man I really, really look up to and admire, Robert Geddes. And, Peter Kann, life-long local resident, and recently-retired Chairman of Dow Jones, and formerly Publisher of the Wall St Journal, out on Route One. Peter has been a breath of fresh air and energy during the last year he has been on the Council of Princeton Future. He has helped us dramatically to focus our pursuits in the June 16 and October 6th events. Peter will moderate our fist panel. Our panelists joining us today are Raoul Momo, local business owner of Mediterra, Teresa’s and the Witherspoon Bread Company, and a Princeton Township resident. Robert Hillier, a local architect. Bob was born and raised in Princeton. His mother had a flower shop here and his father worked for the Sarnoff Research Corporation. He is involved in development in our community. Sandra Persichetti was involved in real estate in the town for 20 years and is now the Executive Director of Princeton Community Housing. She  is a Township resident. Shirley Satterfield is a Deacon at the Witherspoon Presbyterian Church. Her family has lived in this community for 6 generations. Shirley is the historic conscience and counselor of us all. She is involved in the church’s efforts to restore and develop Paul Robeson’s home into a community resource center. And, finally, at the end of the table, the Vice President of Princeton University, Robert Durkee. He is a Township resident and lived in the Borough, as well. He is Princeton University gradute. He is the main point person in its plans to grow in our town and explain them to us in the community. I welcome you all. And, I turn this over to Peter Kann.

Peter Kann: Thank you, Kevin. We should also thank Sheldon Sturges, standing over there, who has done most of the work organizing this event today. I will try to pose a few rather general questions and see whether each member of the panel is willing to give an answer. And then I will try to direct some specific questions to particular panelists. The advertisement for this event today painted a picture of a community ‘changing before our eyes..’. And it cited the issues that Kevin has already outlined. And, then it asked “Can we find a middle way between Princeton as a quaint, cultural curiosity and Princeton as suburban sprawl? So, I would guess I’d ask each panelist very briefly: if you see such a path, what do you think is the single most important thing the community could do to set ourselves on that path?

Bob Durkee: In some ways, that is a particularly interesting question for me as someone at the University because we spend a lot of our time trying to figure out how to find a middle path in being both a major research university [and we were defined that way in these materials] and a residential community that focusses very heavily on undergraduate teaching. Among universities we are fairly rare in being in the niche that we are in. So the idea of finding a middle path is a comfortable idea. And I think it is part of what is underneath some of the guiding principles in the Campus Plan we are working on now and have been discussing with the community for a couple of years: which is to remain a walkable campus...to remain an attractive campus that is open to the community and that has good relations with the community. I was struck by one of the comments at the end about the university moving into the neighborhoods of the community. And how that comment contrasted with the maps Kevin showed at the beginning which actually showed that the university, for the most part, has always lived within a certain perimeter. It is not ‘into’ the community the way many universities are. I think we have done a pretty good job over the years of defining the borders. I am happy to talk later about how we have done that. So, we very much want to be a part of an effort to do exactly what you are describing: to figure the way the community can grow in ways that it has to grow, but to retain all of the special strengths and characteristics of the community. Just as we are trying to do within our own community on the campus.

Shirley Satterfield: Being interested in the history of the town, I think that it is very important for people who are moving into the town, as well as those who are a part of Princeton, to know the history of the community in which they live. When they move into Princeton, then, there won’t be so much upset about how the frontage of their house will look, or what we should change...but that they will respect the history of the the town and its people. And that they will understand that all communities are on an equal front whether you live in Witherspoon Jackson or Prospect St or Westcott....that we all work together and that we all respect each other’s communities.

Sandra Persichetti: I think searching for a middle way is a great goal. I have to say, again and again, the people who are interested in working here, doing things, living here, shopping here, constantly face the double whammy of two municipalities. It is very difficult to find a middle way when the two governing bodies, in my opinion, have not found a middle way. I think one of the attractions to Princeton is the diversity. That is part of our history. If we don’t allow that to continue to grow, we become a golden ghetto. And, that for the people whop live here and love this place would be abhorrent. One would hope that with more conversation, less adversity, we could accomplish that goal. The goal of working together with a singular voice in terms of where we want to go and to be able to do it.

Bob Hillier: I second everything you said. It is interesting that we have two municipalites and, I think, they struggle with each other. And, yet, whenever there is a notion to combine the two, forces come out to prevent it. I think what makes a really vibrant community- and I think this is a phenomenal community and a very rich community - . I recall 4 years ago, giving a talk, calling Princeton the best little city in the world. I emphasize that I used the word ‘little’. The reason I described it as a city is that it has all of the ingredients of a city, but all on a very small and available scale. A lot of that is brought to us by the university: the theaters, the museums, the whole ambiance of the place. I think that what we need to do is to make sure that people can continue to live here.

I do worry about the golden ghetto.  I think that working with the Planning Board, the whole notion of having the COAH requirement mixed in with any new development and any new housing is absolutely critical. That we don’t end up with a ghetto. When I did the Waxwood over on Quarry St, it was wonderful because there is great diversity there. Not only in race and background, but in economics. We have vice presidents from pharmaceutical companies living next to orderlies at Princeton Hospital. So what. It all works. I think the other thing that Princeton could do as they apply the 20%, or whatever the number is going to be, is that that COAH requirement be given a priority for Princeton residents. We do not need to provide affordable housing for people that are going to be moved in from some other town. They should really be for people who live in Princeton. So I think that the key is to continue to have housing, as much housing as is appropriate, and to have a good piece of it be affordable. I think that the 2% idea that was put up is an excellent one. Nantucket has a 2% sales tax on every real estate transaction. And they take that 2% and they apply it to buying green space. As a result, almost 40% of Nantucket is now in conservation. Of course, that makes the remaining land rarer and more expensive. On the next transaction, that 2% is a higher amount. If you could take that two percent and say to anybody who was doing development: “You provide the land space for those affordable units, and we will hope to pay for it.” The way it is right now is when you do a development, the affordable piece is paid for by the new residents. They are all paying 20% more than they need to because of the affordable requirement. But if this 2% were applied throughout, you wouldn’t be placing the burden only on the new purchasers coming into town.

Raoul Momo: I think that if I understand the question correctly... what is going to be the middle ground?.. to plan properly for the future, I think it is compromise and talking. I was disappointed to read that Borough Council has decided to keep the doors closed on its redevelopment that has really been stalled for 3 years. I don’t thank that that helps. Everyone has...I have a business with customers I have to answer to, politicians have voters they have to answer to, the university has their students. We all have to address what we are trying to do. And there has to be compromise. There are hard decisions. You can’t get everything you want. And that is why, sometimes, nothing gets done.

Peter Kann: Now, a more specific question to Bob Hillier. If further growth in the community is good, or in any case, inevitable, should that new development by and large  be ‘up’ or ‘out’? In other words, should we see more semi-highrises in the existing downtown, or should we see further spread and sprawl of the commercial areas?

Bob Hillier: That is a good planning question, and I’ll give you some interesting statistics. We have basically in the Township a 2 acre zoning requirement. One house for every 2 acres. That is what leads to sprawl. Because you just keep gobbling up 2 acres every time you build a new home. The rate of land consumption in the state of New jersey- I have forgotten the number- the number of acres being consumed per minute is scary. Another example. The John-Witherspoon area has an overall density of 21 units to the acre. It works very well as a community. It is a low-rise community. It is all walkable. It is all walkable to town. That is a high density, garden apartment-type of project. My point is, you don’t need to go up to 5-6-10-15 stories, but you can do it with density. With walkability. And I think that that is the character and nature of the town. I think there are some sites where you might think to have a high rise. But I wouldn’t recommend it because high rise facilities are not about community. Commuity is about people being able to walk down one flight, at most two flights of stairs, and be out on the street and part of the commuiity.

Peter Kann: A somewhat related question, should Princeton have one downtown, or is it feasible, actually, to have several? Should Princeton Shopping Center expand in various ways into a second downtown? Could the Arts Neighborhood the University is talking about become an additional downtown? Is that good or bad?

Bob Hillier: I think actually it could be pretty good. I think the Shopping Center is a great waste of land. I think it would be wonderful if the Princeton Shopping Center became a second Palmer Square. And people could live there. And shop there. It is an entirely different shopping experience and you wouldn’t have to take away the service aspect of it by letting people live on that great sea of asphalt that is there. The Arts Center is a different thing because that becomes more of an entertainment district.  One thing I learned from the Chamber of Commerce, do you realize that there are 500,000 visitors to Princeton every year? That is 10,000 people a week coming to this town! What is wrong with having an Arts District, a Palmer Square and maybe even anothe shopping district down by the old hospital site? That will enrich it for those visiotrs, and yet, because we have to live here, make it that much better for us. So I would endorse 3 or maybe 4 different districts.

Shirley Satterfield: Can those of us up on the panel ask a question? I’d like to know where downtown begins and ends? The reason I ask that is because those of us who were brought up in Princeton, ‘downtown’ is where we live and ‘uptown’ is Nassau St. And, then, when you talk about downtown around Nassau St and then you talk about the Waxwood on Quarry St as ‘beautiful downtown Princeton’, I become confused as to where downtown begins and where it ends. Because if we go up Witherspoon St, we are going uptown. And now that is all downtown. So where does downtown stop, so that when where I live on Quarry St, when you advertise the Waxwood in beautiful downtown Princeton: something is not right. If that can be explained, then, we can find out about our downtown.

Bob Hillier: I think it all started with that song: ‘Downtown’. I think downtown has always been a colloquialism. I think downtown is anything that is within a 5-10 minute walk. That is a half a mile. Let’s say from Witherspoon St and Nassau St. intersection: a 10-minute walk, in my book, would encompass the downtown. Because it is easier to walk than to get into a car and find a parking spot and pay the parking meter.

Peter Kann: Shirley, the presentation earlier touched on the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood. It would appear that, on the one hand, rising property values and gentrification are changing that neighborhood, and on the other hand an influx of immigrants into rental properties owned in some cases by absentee landlords are changing that neighborhood. What do you think the neighborhood is going to be like in 10 years if the current trends continue?

Shirley Satterfield: I am concerned about architects who come in and change the value of our home. To give you an example: I live on Quarry St. The Waxwood was built for us, and we are very happy to have a building in the community that looks the way it did when it was a school. Mr. hillier did meet with us and told us what he was going to do, and we are very pleased with that. But I think it was a segué to build a house on our street that looks nothing like the other houses. It is taller than all of the other houses. And, as I understand, one half of the house is selling for $900,000, and the other is $925,000. And when you talk about wanting to keep people in our neighborhood, I don’t know how that can happen when we have such a home on our street. If we continue to build homes like that our families can not afford to live here. It is a working community. It accounts for the same thing the immigrants are doing now. We work for the people on Library Place, we work for the university. And now we have a flux of people that are doing the same thing. If we continue building houses like the one on Quarry St. And I understand they are talking to us to sell their homes so that they continue to build houses like that on Quarry St where do the people that are working for the university and the homes in Princeton, and the restaurants...where are they going to live? And, yes, I do have a problem with what we used to call slum landlords who come into the community and fix up a house halfway, and then we have more than one family in the home. This is because they have nowhere else to live execpt in the Witherspoon-Jackson Community. So it is kind of a double: they are building homes we can’t afford to live in ... and, yet, there is a continuous influx of people who are working class, and working poor people in Princeton. I guess that is kind of it.

Peter Kann: Anyone else on the panel want to address that issue?

Bob Hillier: It is an interesting thing about the zoning. At one point, I looked at building a little village, basically, studio or efficiency apartments for the gardeners and restaurant workers, the folks you see lined up on Witherspoon St in the morning. When I looked at the zoning code, and at the parking requirements for people who basically don’t have cars. And I realized the uproar creating such housing would create, I backed away from it. But the fact of the matter is that we have an unspoken slum condition in a lot of houses that are basically home for illegal [possibly] aliens that are basically our lowest level of service people. And, I think, as a town, we should do more for them. But there is no vehicle, without becoming extremely controversial, raising a lot of ire, by which one could do that.

Peter Kann: A question for Sandra. The advertisement and Kevin’s presentation pointed out the paradox of this largely wealthy community in which most of the essential public servants can not afford to live...to buy...to rent. We expect our essential public service workers to love a town in which they can not afford to live. Do you see a solution to this? Is there a way to provide local preference in affordable housing? And, more specifically, a way to provide preference to essential public servants, by which I mean police and teachers, for example.

Sandra Persichetti: First, let me say that I am new to the affordable housing development world. My background is all commercial development, working with banks, rather than government agencies. Affordable housing as PCH does it is subsidized housing. We are funded generally by the Federal, State and, fortunately, the local governments to plan and build these houses and apartments. We own them. That is low and moderate income housing. One of the difficulties, however,  is ...I need to tell you this experience I had. It is new to me, but many of you may be familiar with it. I was hired to complete the construction of what we now call Harriet Bryan House. It is a 68 unit, very low income, senior, rental apartment. It is the poster child for consolidation. The building is in the Boro and in the Township. 2 mayors. 2 governing bodies. 2 engineers. 2 fire inspectors. 2 zoning officers. 2 of everything. The cost to develop...and that doesn’t include the objection from the neighbors...We spent 4 years in litigation. We had $700,000 into that building before turning over a shovelful of dirt. Between planning....a ll of the costs of architecturla and engineering, and an enormous amount of money in litigation. Unless you are being funded by the governments, you can’t ...and the governments include your tax dollars...You can not, as a private developer, do something like that where the rents will be set for people making $13,000-$15,000/yr. On Social Security. So, that is an issue. I brought one of my favorite books, which I would encourage everyone to read. There are 2 case studies in this book: Red Tape & Housing Costs. The studies have to do with NJ & North Carolina. They talk about adding $60-$80,000/house on market subdivision housing...[very different from what we are doing].  So, I think you can’t do the very low income housing without government subsidy. To address the question of the firemen, the police and the the people who are working to prepare and serve you food here, take care of your children, mow your lawns: Number one, it is very difficult going through the planning & zoning process that is so restrictive and so costly that money has to come out of the cost of the house. So, unless we can streamline that a little bit, I ..that is not to say there should be no zoning and no planning...but it needs to be streamlined, and accerlated. There needs to be a way for developers to make money. The point of all market development is to make money. The land costs in Princeton are exorbitant. It is very difficult to do any significant moderate to middle income housing with the zoning restrictions, with the 2 acre zoning, you just can’t do it. There has to be more density allowed on acreage in order to do a volume that allows for you to do some of this middle income housing. Let me add one more thing, if you do get government funding, you can’t do a Princeton preference. We are going through that in a site right now in town. It is just not legal under the Federal government’s Fair Housing laws.

Peter Kann: And, Bob Durkee, is this an issue, or should it be, for the University as well? That is, you rely on many middle class or working people to support the university in various ways. Should the university be providing subsidized, local housing for its own employees?

Bob Durkee: I think the university contributes to affordable hosuing in a number of ways. Some of them are direct. Some of them are more indirect. One of the ways we do it is by housing a very substantial proportion of ouur own graduate students who otherwise would be competing for the the very few affordable units in town. We house over 80% of our graduate students. That is exceedingly rare among the universities. And, over time, we expect to add additional graduate student housing. We also provide a very substantial amount of housing for our faculty and staff, including faculty & staff in more middle income ranges. We have over 500 rental units for faculty and staff. And, almost 200 of them are lived in by people whose income is under $50,000/yr. So, we are housing a substantial number of our own faculty & staff. We, also, with our graduate student housing, even though, under the law, it could be off of the tax rolls, we keep it on the tax rolls. We do that, in part, as a way to support the schools in the commuity. But, also, as a way to provide more tax revenues to the municipalities which they can elect to use as they choose to use them. We also have a history of making contributions for affordable housing to the communities. We work closely with Princeton Community Housing and others. And, we are actively developing affordable housing, which I recognize under COAH rules, can’t be Princeton Preference...but we are part of that program. At the moment, we are working very closely with Boro Council to develope some affordable housing on Leigh Avenue. And, we are working with Princeton Township to expand what is available at Princeton Community Housing. So, there are a variety of ways that we can and do participate. We also, of course, have policies that stipulate that when we establish salary scales for our lowest paid workers, we pay them above market, and we have a number of programs in place to help them find housing in the community or in other surrounding communities. So, it is an issue that we take seriously.  An issue that we work on lot, both directly and indirectly.

Peter Kann: And, the question that was raised in Kevin’s presentation: Is there anything more the university can or should try to do defuse some of the community frustration over local taxes continuously rising while the largest landowner in the community in non-taxable?

Bob Durkee: It is a particularly interesting question this morning, because I sepnt yesterday submitting testimony to a US Senate Finance Committee that is concerned whether universities are spending their money on the purposes for which they received it...which is to support research & teaching. We have long believed that it is appropriate to spend some dollars on and in and for the community in which we are located. And, I mentioned before, we have chosen to do things like leaving housing on the tax rolls...so that we are a substantial tax payer in both communities. We have also negotiated an agreement with the Boro, as many in the room know, where we make an entirely unrestricted annual contribution. Now you probably think of that as a million dollars, but this year, it will actually be significantly more than that because there two formulas in that agreement that escalate that contribution, year by year. So, for example, there was a lot of attention last week on the fact that we have opened this new residential college on campus. For us, that is an important new addition to our campus. For the Boro, it is also an addition to the voluntary contribution, because some of those buildings are in the oro, and they drive up that contribution. So, we have tried hard. Not only in those ways, but we have contributed to the cost of this building. We have contributed to cost of the building across the street, The Arts Council of Princeton. We have contributed to the schools. We contribute every year to the First Aid Rescue Squad. A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated the lighting of the monument. The Plaza outside the Library. We have tried to be generous where we can be in helping to meet the needs of the community. I don’t know whether you are going to be asking me in a couple of minutes about the Arts Neighborhood. But I would like to say a little bit about that at some point.

Peter Kann: Why don’t you go ahead.

Bob Durkee: There was reference to what we call the Arts & Transit Neighborhood. Those of you who are interested, later, the latest thinking is up here on the side. For us this is a very interesting idea. I don’t hink of it as downtown and I don’t think of it as an entertainment neighborhood. I think of it a potentially, very interesting place where a lot of things can come together. #1. I think that there ways we can improve traffic circulation through that area and that would be in everyone’s interest. I think it really is important to create a better place not only where the the Dinky can arrive. The University has a long history of supporting the Dinky. The reason we own the land there is because of past efforts to support the Dinky. It can be a better place. Not only for the Dinky arrives, for for the Dinky to link up with the community shuttle, if that gets developed, the university shuttle system which is developed, and potentially,  some of you in the room were at the Planning Board meeting a couple of weeks ago, the community had with NJ Transit. If Bus Rapid Transit is added, not replacing, added to the Dinky line, buses serving the community, we need to figure out a way for all of that to happen in a pretty small space. We are also trying, as part of this paln, to make the area a much more attractive one to people who use the Dinky, both in terms of a plaza that might exist there, and, the kind of modest retail that might exist there. If the Art Museum expansion is located there, that means there will be exhibits for people to and from the Dinky to take advantage of. This could be quite a nice attractive, lively area for people who are using the Dinky. At the same time, we are trying to expand our capacity in the Arts. Part of that, of course, is for our students and our faculty in the arts to be able to ...but part of it also is for the community to be able to, in additon to McCarter, be able to participate in the arts, not just what is there now, and the museum, but other opportunities. So, potentially, this becomes a very attractive area for the community...and one that at the end of the day adds to the municipal coffers in one way or another, while continuing to provide the parking that is needed in that area., to make I think will be a much more attractive entry into the community. So, there are lots of purposes we are trying to address in a relatively small area. I think they are purposes that will meet the needs of lots of folks in the community beyond those who live work and study at the unversity.

Peter Kann: To Raoul, as a local businessman, you make significant investments in downtown Princeton. What are the challenges you and other local business people face in dealing with municipal authorities and government agencies?

Raoul Momo: Coordination is, as we have just heard from Sandra..the red tape. I wrote the title of that book down, I am going to read it. Probably it describes a very similar situation. It is a different place with Princeton. It is interesting talking about hosuing, as the housing has just collapsed nationally, Palmer Sq decides to go ahead and build housing on Paul Robeson Place. It is very complex. These are the issues we have to deal with to make it attractive. She is right, it has to be attractive for investors and developers to make things happen. If those costs are out of control, it is impossible.  I see construction costs, developement costs, soft costs...$700,000 before you have laid one brick is pretty crazy. So, the government has to be involved. It has to sit down with the business people and the development people to really answer some of these issues in that open discussion, to ask: “What is the right thing?” As this ad shows, the Princeton Future ad, it is not right to look at every single zoning application individually. You have to look at the big picture. We all have to agree on what the vision is. Is it 3 downtowns? Or, are there other ways for looking at the proper servicing of neighborhoods, and costs associated with servicng these neighborhoods? Once you have that, and being realistic about handling that...We look at opportunities all the time. Generally, it ends up that you have to talk to an engineer, attorneys, and it is scary. You are not going to attract any healthy growth that way.

Peter Kann: Raoul, are we destined to have a downtown with more good restaurants and more trendy boutiques and no place to buy a bedsheet or a hammer or a towel or a trowel? Is this the inevitable play of market forces? Or, is there a solution?

Raoul Momo: We hosted Michael Schuman at Mediterra. He wrote the book Small Mart Revolution. It is a real interesting book how the impression everyone has, mostly government officials, that is it TINA vs LOIS.  TINA means There Is No Alternative to big box stores. And LOIS is Locally-Owned Import Substitution. That is pretty much the case. It is not true there is no alternative. Look at my brother and me. We don’t make any sense to the chain world of restaurants out there which is like big box business. So, I don’t agree with subsidizing. Free market is the way to go. Bob Geddes, I think mentioned, that right now it is a chess game for the business world. We need to turn it into a checkers game. We need to make it simpler ot get things done. That will help a lot. So, government, politicians, institutions need to sit down with those entrepreneurs and listen to them. Yes, we can have a tore where we csan buy what we want. But, first, you have to find those entrepreneurs that have those business models and listen to what the issues are. You don’t want to hear my issues this morning.

Robert Durkee: Can I ask a question? I am on that long list of people that misses Woolworths. I don’t know the answer to this. One of the lessons we have learned is that this town couldn’t support a movie theater if it didn’t have someone like the university to subsidize the movie theater. This town wouldn’t have an independent book store coming in right now if the university hadn’t been willing to participate.  When Micawbers decided to go out of business, the costs of doing business in this town would not have made it possible for the independent bookstore to do that. So, we don’t cross Nassau St very often. We have in those 2 cases because of how important it seemed to have those two attributes in this community. The longterm answer is NOT that the university should be subsidizing retail across the street. I don’t know how you do it. But it is clear that, for whatever the reasons are, there are certain kinds of businesses that we would all like in this town that are not going to be able to make it if they have to do it without some kind of assistance.

Peter Kann: To Bob Hillier again. Is Palmer Sq a good model of downtown development? You indicated it might be replicated in the Shopping Center. Is Palemr Sq, in effect, a kind of Special Improvement District? A SID. And, if so, would that be a model for downtown Princeton as a whole?

Bob Hillier: I think it is an excellent model because it is reatil, residential above, It has the right mix of offices and restaurants. It is, forgive the word, an urban solution. But it works very well. And, I know from people, developers who are looking to create new downtowns, literally, all over the world...they come to see us in Princeton and I take them to see Palmer Sq and they ‘get it’. It has the right scale. It feels small. And, yet, it is extremely dense. One of the things a lot of people don’t realize is that the center building of Palmer Square is 8 stories high, but you can’t see that from any place in Princeton. I think it is a good model. What is interesting is that Forrestal Village was an imitation of Palmer Sq. Except it didn’t have the housing component. And it didn’t have the community all around it. So you can’t just take Palmer Sq and isolate it. You have to have the greater community around it. As a center point, as a magnet, as a center of town, it is really hard to beat. People talk about the traffic on it. I’ll tell you a brief story. I took a developer out to Forrestal Village and we walked around and it was quiet because nobody lived there. And all of the parking is in garages. There were literally no cars on the streets out there. And, then I brought him into Palmer Square...and, what you don’t realize, is the energy that the cars moving at 10 mph bring to that with the people parking, the doors slamming, and the fact that most people only park there for 15-20 minutes. The cars themselves at that manageable spped bring an energy to the place. It takes people to make a place work.

Peter Kann: A question to any or all of the panel. Government has to be part of the solution to any of our problems, not an obstacle to it. Would Princeton be a better functioning community if it were one town with 2 political parties, rather than 2 towns with one political party? [Laughter]So, in effect, would a larger more competitive democracy be better than 2 one-party systems?

Sandra Persichetti: I’d like it to be one town. I don’t care how many parties there are. Having these two towns. We have 30,000 people. And the fact that we can not get together under one umbrella in this world with the chaos going on everywhere. 30,000 people needing 2 municipal buildings, 2 huge government bureaucracies, and duplicative effort. It is no wonder the taxes are so high. I agree with Peter. The fact that we have been a Democratic set of communities .... the constituents raise issues. The constituents are the opposite voice! But nothing much changes. It is why things take so long in this long. I need to do one more pitch on the part of developers: whether it is market or not-for-market, time is money. To take the time it does to open a new restaurant, to open a new shop, to build a new building, to get approval from the university. The cost is just over the top. I just had lunch on Nassau St. The poor man is a local shop keeper spent 2 years in the approval process to open a small restaurant. Then of course another year for construction. Now, from the earlier slides, we all want Mom & Pop shops, but it only the chains that can afford to stay that long. So as we continue to have these long delays, we will continue to be a town of chains. That is what everybody in this room doesn’t want. [Applause]. So, one community. Next time consolidation comes up, let’s pay attention to it. Chad has been writing articles...

Peter Kann: Anyone else on the panel. We have to wrap this up in about 5 minutes.

Bob Durkee: This is a question I know I shouldn’t touch with a 10 ft pole. However...I want to say just 2 things. Recognizing, that if you look at this design, the Township/Boro line goes right through the middle of the Arts Transit Neighborhood. We are clearly in both municipalities. I don’t detect any lack of range of views being expressed in this community! I don’t think ...the inference behind the question is that everyone comes at the issues the same way..I don’t think that is true. I think that is healthy. On the question of working with the two municipalities...What I need to say is that there are times when each of those municipalities give us a hard time.  There atimes whhen we deserve it. There are times I am not sure we deserve it quite frankly.  I don’t think there is any question that when we are engaged in those conversations...whether it is with the elected officials, or with the staff in those municipalities, that they are trying to do what is best for this community. I don’t come out of these conversations saying “We have a governance problem here.”...that is motivated by anything other than trying to make things work well.  Would it work better if they were a single municipality in the way the Planning Board works, the School Board, and the Library...? I think there are arguments on both sides of that question. I do want to say in our experience it is all about trying to come out in a good place.

Peter Kann: I think a last question, specifically to Shirley, although others are welcome to comment. What can individual citizens, or individual citizen groups do to help to preserve the traditional character of neighborhoods in this community, given the fact that further development is almost inevitable?

Shirley Satterfield: As I said before, you should look at the history of the community.  I give the tours of the African American community. If you go on the tours, you know about the people who live in that area. I think that there need to be more people from each neighborhood being a part of these groups. Then there is a voice. To get information from them as to how we can get together. We know about the segregation of this town. You will then know why when we have these meetings, you don’t see a lot of African Americans because we have always been excluded. I think if we feel confident and comfortable in these conversations, we can get together more to understand better how we can keep our community. Also, when we build anymore Palmer Squares...those of you who know the history of Palmer Sq, Mr Palmer came in as a member of a big family and he wanted to build a square that resembled Rockefeller Center. He has displaced Black people to move further down Witherspoon St. The same thing happened from Wiggins to 206 where there is a thoroughfare. They displaced all of the people on Jackson St. That is why when you talk about Witherspoon-Jackson, people say “Where is Jackson St?’. It is gone. We have to understand that when we do do developement that we don’t displace people that have been here for centuries.

Bob Durkee: One of my favorite images is of when Peter is talking into his tie. One recent example that I think is a very good one is th relationship the university has developed with its neighbors to the east. Mostly on Murray Place. But also on other streets around that area. This came out many years ago in conversations about what would happen in the Engineering Quadrangle. But it has broadened into a much more wide-ranging discussion about how we think about our properties in that part of town. It has led to a much clearer articulation  of how far the university goes and beyond that point what happens. And what happenes, largely beyond that point, is additional housing. We meet with them on a fairly regular basis. They identify issues for us where we can be helpful to them. We identify issues where they can be helpful to us. I think that kind of developement of neighborhood identity with the willingness to engage in conversation is very healthy for both sides. It has been a recent success story, I think., about a group of neighbors getting helpfully involved. The most recent was about re-routing some of our shuttles to get it off of Williams St. which we have done. There are examples. More of them would be better.

Peter Kann: OK. I think we are out of time for this panel. It will be followed by another one. And I think most of these panelists will stay around and there will be some time for open questions later. Please join me in thanking the panel. [Applause]

Panel #2: The Public: Elected & Appointed Officals.

Kevin: We need to get back to work. In this panel we are going to meet people who have given an extraordinary amount of time to the town in their capacity as elected & appointed officials.  I’d like to introduce them to you. David Goldfarb, Councilman of Princeton Borough. David has been on Boro Council for 17 years. He isa resident of Princeton Borough. He grew up in Princeton Township. He is very dedicated in his efforts and commitments on Council. Next to him is Township Committeeman, Lance Liverman. Lance has been on Twp Committee for 3 years. He is up this year fro re-election to his second term. Lance is a Witherspoon St resident in the Township and has been a member of the community most of his life. Sitting next to him is Professor Emeritus Barrie Royce. Barrie is Chair of the Princeton Boro Zoning Board. You will have met him if you want to put a non-conforming addition on to your building. Next to Barrie is Tom Wright. Tom is the Executive Director of the Regional Plan Association. The RPA is committed to progressive developement and studies for renewed life in downtowns and sustainable communities throughout our tri-state metropolitan area. He teahces urban planning at Columbia and Princeton. He grew up in Princeton. He is a redident of Princeton Twp. I welcome the 4 of you to our session. I will this over to Bob Geddes who will lead the questioning for this panel.

Robert Geddes: In the spirit of town and gown, I’d like to take the opportunity to give a short lecture as to why this is a special event! It is very rare that if there were two panels, that the first panel would be given over to developers. And the second panel to the public. It is the reverse of the way thinking normally goes. You expect the public to set the stage, the framework, the context...and the developers to follow. And that may happen again. For now, this is the reality of the world in which we operate. Let me give further a little sense of what is happening. The tradition of urban design and planning and city building comes, essentially, from England where it is called town & country planning. The professional planning institute is the Institute of Town & Country Planning. Now that seems to be very real for Princeton. We are very interested in both the countryside and the town.

Second point: The education of town & counrty planners in our tradition was based upon the idea of civic design.  It was assumed that the role of the planner was a civic role, a public role. In fact when I taught at Penn, before my ascension to Princeton, I was a professor of architecture and civic design. That tradition was best illustrated in Chicago by Daniel Burnham 100 years ago when the extraordinarily important  Chicago Plan was done by a civic committee. It was an example of civic design and civic art. The notion of civic, the notion of city, the notion of civilization is why we have these 4 people here. Because they represent the civic side of the question. There are actually two groups up here. On your left are representatives in your governments. It is unusal in our town to have both in the same room. [Laughter & Applause]. The second group was selected because one represents the particular, and, the other, the general. If you are going to make change, or do almost anything in Princeton. It is the Zoning Board of Adjustment that deals with the very particular act. And the way cities and towns get built is through individual acts. Cumulatively and sometimes collaboratively. Barrie Royce’s civic act is to be chair of the Zoning Board. On the other hand, most issues that we deal with are also, in some respect, regional.  Many of the problems raised in the first panel or in your questions are those that can not be solved just locally, but have regioanl impact or the region effects that particular problem. So, for that reason it is wonderful to have Tom Wright with us. Tom is the Executive Director of the oldest and most important regional planning association in the country. One that did the first regional plan in NY inn the 1920’s. The second plan in the 60’s. The third plan in the 1990’s. He is not just local! That is why the panel is the way it is. I can’t let this moment go by without praising Peter Kann for not just his leadership of the first panel but his willingness to share his joke with us...which is perhaps not that funny.  So perhaps the role of Princeton Future is to raise these kinds of questions for discussion. The other thing that came up in the first panel was whether Palmer Sq was an admirable example to follow. I don’t think there was any basic doubt as to whether the final result was right, but some of the aspects of its history are not right. I would like to raise another question about Palmer Sq. When I first came to Princeton, I came here to succeed Jean Labutut. The greta French professor of architecture. Labby was a great man to tell stories. He walked me around town...you know he always was pushing you a little bit...and he said “In 1930, I suppose, Edgar Palmer and I were walking around Palmer Sq...and I said to him: “Edgar, George Washington hasn’t slept here, but he will!” [Laughter] It is this kitsch side of one side of the street...versus the kitsch on the other...The Georgian on one side, the gothic on the other. This is an extraordinary town which is very expressive of the town-gown relationship.  Let’s get down to the more serious of it...

I spent a couple of days reading what Sheldon Sturges has put together for us. It is a really extraordinary document. It is a remarkable story. Any of you who are aspiring writers might like to make novels out of it.
Let me start at the point where Kevin introduced us. There seems to be 2 overriding concerns.  Two concerns which, if we don’t face up to them, we really will be shirking our moral, as well as our political, economic and aesthetic responsibilities. The two are,  one, viability and two, diversity. The two go together. In fact, you probably need both in order to understand the other. Viability is another way to be concerned about affordability, about sustainability. It is not just housing. But it is housing. It is affordability for businesses and institutions.  It is affordability for residents. It is affordability for parking. In some respects, it is affordability of government services. Can we sustain and have viable governments, as well as the businesses and the institutions.  It is a very broad range of questions about viability and affordability.  The second set of questions rise out of diversity which not only a social model but also a biological one. I understand that stable and healthy ecological communities are diverse. But certainly with respect to society and with the economy. So, in talking about diversity, you are concerned about people and places...businesses and institutions...housing and neighborhoods. And, diversity, when we first started Princeton Future, when Bob Goheen, Sheldon and I just began to think about and talk with people, it was in fact the representatives of the university that talked to us about diversity as essential to their well-being. And, so businesses, housing are concerned with diversity.
Let’s take up viability and diversity and do you see it from the public’s eye? David?

David Goldfarb: I think they are very closely related. This town will always be what we want, what we see here. The question is who can afford to live here and be able pay what it takes to maintain it that way. That’s one issue. The other issue is the university’s role in the community, both financial and in terms of their plans. I would take issue with one of the things Bob Durkee said in an otherwise excellent presentation and I really appreciate many of the comments he made. But, in my lifetime, the university has changed the way its community looks by taking over Alexander St. Alexander St used to have a hotel. It used to have a lumber yard. Other businesses and houses. The university has changed all of that. They changed the character. In my neighborhood, the university has taken viable commercial buildings and turned them into exempt office space.
The university could, if it wanted to, within a month, if everyone in this town wanted to sell their property at market price, the university could buy the entire town and have plenty left over. They probably wouldn’t even have to change the way they operate. I think that is a concern. The university says it is trying to be sensitive but
I think we have to look at actions and be very vigilant. And, make sure that the university is committed to the same kind of community that we are.  In terms of diversity, economic diversity is already threatened. You can’t
buy a house for less than $400,000. Rentals are increasing. It is becoming very difficult to live for working people.  So the way we achieve diversity is by packing people into overcrowded conditions isn’t the answer either. We are reluctant to do what we should to make sure that the living conditions are appropriate. Because to do so would reduce our diversity even further. So, I think we need to look at more systemic kinds of changes. I think we need to look at having the university make a bigger financial contribution to the community to relieve the burden. To change the tax system so that we are not so heavily reliant on taxes because otherwise our diversity is going to disappear. We will still have the kind of town we want but only wealthy people will be living here.

Lance Liverman: I remember, going back to 8 or 9, my step father, Clete Rhodes, owned a garbage business. I was one of the kids that rode on the back of the truck. We used to go around to all of the neighborhoods, on Library Place and so forth. This was the 60’s and 70’s. One thing I noticed was how kind and nice everyone, the people in Princeton, was, everywhere. I always took that with me, wherever I’d go...North Carolina, Virginia. I always wanted to come back home. Even, way back then, the issues, especially in the John-Witherspoon area,  I would notice, just listening to the adults: the cost factor. How much everything kept going up. Housing. Food. Education. Everything kept going up and going up. As a child around adults at that time, people would say “One day, you won’t be able to afford to live in Princeton.” Now, I am 45 years old and I can truly say that there are a lot of people I know who can not afford to live in Princeton. That’s an issue. It takes private sector. It takes the government sector. It takes all secotrs to wrestle with it. In the Twp, we do have an affordable housing department that works with subsidizing housing purchases for people that can’t pay the full cost. Princeton Community Housing has about 400-500 units. They do a great job. Princeton is the jewel. We don’t know how lucky we are to live in Princeton. We can make it better. The viabilty of affordability, and offering people a place to live, is so important. Without that, Princeton won’t be the Princeton it is today.

Barrie Royce: I guess I am going to give you the personal view. Being in Princeton for 47 years now...you can tell from the funny way I speak, I wasn’t born in America...I have a French wife. Princeton for us us was a hven. I wasn’t unbearably English and she wasn’t impossibly French, we were able to have a good relationship in varying parts of Princeton.  I used to find it amazing that Americans moved so often. Then I realized I had lived in a large number of places, all within Princeton. Started off on Evelyn Place. Then I moved to Stanworth.
The I moved to Prospect Avenue. Then, I sort of bought a house. Then I got an official house from the university. Then I went to the house I am now in. If you divide the number houses into 47 years I am a typical American. Princeton has changed enormously in that time. I must say, I felt comfortable in the town. I am privileged. I worked for that group across the road. I became an American willingly.  As soon as I did that, I got onto the Zoning Board, thinking that that would be apolitical way to help develop the community. That organization has essentially a judicial role to play. Other people design zoning. If you look at the Boro, 50-60% of the lots in any given zone do not comply. They were there before zoning was thought of. So our main task is to make it possible for people to do reasonable things although they are formally forbidden by existing zoning, at least in the details. I was surprised to see that people think we are too kind. We can be tougher. It does seem to me that one of the things we have got to do is to try to keep the place a viable environment. I notice, at the moment, that everything is going from a nice little Cape Cod into a 2-story, at least, with the same footprint...and then they start moving sideways. I am guilty. I have got a big enough lot that I have always gotten what I wanted to do. No one has given me a hard time. I think the problem  of the Township and the Boro is an interesting one. They are two different environments in the way people can interact. I personally like the Shopping Center. I don’t like it from an architectural viewpoint. ..ie things that re very useful surrounded by parking lots. That could be dealt with more valuably. Farr Hardware is no longer on Nassau St. and Urkens is gone, so I have to go to the Shopping Center to find the things I desperayely need because my faucet started leaking on a Sunday morning. So, we have to worry about that diversity in town. I think thatto have several foci where we can go to find the things that we want. Now we can eat very very nicely in several parts of our town. That wasn’t possible. The diversity of the town, in a visual way, has changed very significantly in 47 years. There are many more different faces I can see as I walk along Nassau St....interact with people in stores...or look at who my next door neighbors are. I think that is all for the best.

Tom Wright: I am going to take a second, Bob, and nest your question into one Kevin had asked earlier: What is the important thing to think about in terms of the future of the community here? I think it is understanding that change is constant. That there is always dynamism. Even when we talk about local perspective here, that the region, the state, the nation, the globe that we are in, is constantly changing. We need to be understanding of that change. There is a whole hypothesis on the table of trying to remain static. This is simply impossible. We can make a decison not to allow some kind of changes, but that doesn’t mean that change won’t occur. With that kind of understanding, to think about viability, in terms of our systems here, we struggle in many ways: under a property tax structure in the State of New Jersey that really allows the towns to only raise revenues from a limited number of sources. That creates real tension for us. We struggle under a home rule system that allows each of the towns to zone for what it wants. It doesn’t allow us to really have any positve engagement with our neighboring communities. And, when we look at the issue of affordable housing, workforce and employment, traffic and cogestion. They are all obviously regional issues that we should have a better way of focussing on. Our viability is often threatened by our inability to recognize the changing community and changing environment we are in...and our unwillingness to be able to embrace and adapt to it. I’d say on diversity, too, just to take the second part. It gets thrown about as a trite issue.” Oh, yes, we all like and embrace diversity.” I think we need to take a stronger look at it...to go back to evolutionary studies and to what Darwin taught us. Diversity is the means by which species are able to adapt to change. We understand that over the evolutionary clock, that we have seen temperatures warm up and decline. We have seen that species, through diversity, were able to adapt to those changes so that they didn’t become extinct. I think commujnities are the same. Why we need diversity in our communities is that this change is going to happen. If we are not able to adapt to it, and have diversity in our community, we will face those same kinds of problems. I remebr when Rt One opened up, and Toys R Us...that is where I wanted to get my toys. And Palmer Sq was essentially a failed development project. It is not inconceivable that things could really take a turn for the worse.
While I agree that Princeton is a jewel, I want to be sure that we don’t use that kind of attitude to try to push away change.  We have to be willing to embrace what is going to happen. Recognize it. Many of these changes are happening on a regional level. ..That the the Dinky is a connection for this community to New York City, Philadelphia and the whole Metropolitan Region....That Rt 206 and Rt One connect across Central NJ...That we are in the middle of these forces that really impact our community. We really need to understand those forces and be willing to adapt to the change.

Robert Geddes: Let’s pick up on a couple of things. One, if you read through Sheldon’s book, you hear many people say that the most important issue is taxes. Property taxes are causing terrible problems. Taxes convert into too high rents for the merchants and so forth. The first and simplest question is the most direct one: Does the University carry its fair share? Bob Durkee is still with us and in the last panel he was vert forthright in stating what the uniiversity’s payments have been. And, I think it is fair to say, Bob, that you have offered to enlighten us more...to provide a comparison of what this university does in comparison with other universities do in other settings. And, I think Pam Hersh when we had meetings here, also suggested this ... Would it be possible to have a new procedure: a Town-Gown relationship which was structured.  Where, perhaps, every other year, the two sides, or for the moment, it would be three: the Boro, the Township and the University...reprted to each other on their values, their concerns, their plans, their concerns for each other. And the public could see and read and hear this town-gown analysis in its economic...in its social...and in its physical form. Would that be a possible outcome of this kind of discussion?

David Goldfarb: I’d like to thank Princeton Future for providing this kind of structure we have here today. This is really what we need. We have sat down with Bob [Durkee] on many occasions. We talk with the university all of the time. I am sure the Township does also on many different issues. But to have a community setting where we are all talking about our various concerns and hearing from each other what our various persectives are is enormously useful.  So it is THIS kind of discussion we should be having periodically. Not tripartite meetings with the Boro-the Twp-the University..or other one-on-one conversations. We ought to be having community conversations so that we really understand what the real concerns are.

Robert Geddes: With respect, unless we get it out and people can read it in Town Topics and the Princeton Packet and mull it over, will we make any progress?  Will we understand? I, for example, am on both sides of the street. I see the contributions of the university to the community...and, I see the contributions of the community to the university. I understand the frustrations from both sides.  Can’t we get, every couple of years, a document which states what these are. So that, not just these wonderful people here, but the whole community would understand it.

David Goldfarb: I think we all got our free issue of the Princeton Weekly Bulletin that the university sends out at its own expense to everyone in 08540-2 explaining all of  the wonderful things the university does for the community. In all fairness: all of those things are very true and we are very grateful. And many of the things the university does should be models for what the governments should do....particularly when it comes to transportation and parking. But we have a harder time getting our message across. I think we need to do that for the community.  We, the government, need to make our case to the community that the university is not doing enough for the community. We haven’t done it. We have to start doing it.

Lance Liverman: I think working with the university in Princeton Township is a little different thatn working with the university in Princeton Borough. Anytime you have a Goliath on one side of the street, and the people on the other, it easy to look at that and say “We need more!”.  I think that communication and dialogue between the University and the Township and the Boro happens. I think that the increase this year the university will make to the Boro is one way of seeing, I hope, of establishing the future.  For me the actual cost...It is like when the state gives us unfunded mandates. You have to do this and there is no money. You say “Oh, my God, how are we going to do this?” If the university can work alog with us on projects and items, especially when it comes to the basics: schools, and tons and tons of basic stuff. If they could work with us, I think it would be a lot better. At the same time, the university is working with the Township on items. But if you are asking, “Should they do more?” The answer is “Yes!”

Robert Geddes: With respect, in order to convince the community that that is the case, it would seem that comparative studies/facts would help, and secondly, more transparency would help.

Lance Liverman: I think you are right.

Robert Geddes: I am not assuming...I agree with you....I am not sure the university isn’t doing already what it should do...I am asking the question: “How do we know?”

Lance Liverman: I think that is extremely important. I definitely agree that there should be more transparency. I am a Township Committeeman and I don’t even know. I think it is most important that houses stay on the tax rolls.  I know with regard to your basic items, let’s say the fire department needs to buy a brand new fire truck because the buildings at the university have gone up higher than any other building in town. I think that on costs like that, the university should step forward.

Robert Geddes: Let me switch to another question, if I may, for Barrie and Tom.

Tom Wright: Can I throw one thing in? I actually...two fallacies always creep into a conversation whenever we talk about town & gown. One is that the relationship between the town & gown is all about money. ..what is the amount of money that is contributed...and, is that enough?  The relationship is obviously so much more complicated than that. There are so many dynamics. Also, and we tend to talk about it when we try...I agree it is about transparency....it is not a relationship that can ever be centralized. It is not about having the university figure out all of its issues and try to focus them into one department and then connect with the town at one level. I think about the entire geographic border between the university and the towns, and I think, if anything, I would want more porousness and dialogue all across the border. That it is not a centralized relationship. It is a very complex one. There should be more local interaction in every possible engagement between each of the different institutions and each of the different communities. As long as we try to reduce it down to a dollar amount, and try to centralize it, I don’t see us ever getting out of this box.

Barrie Royce: The only comment I would make is that the university is not the only tax exempt organization in this community. I think that banging away at it because it is a cash cow potentially is OK, but it is not productive.

Robert Geddes: I think sometime we ought to invite The Institute, the Princeton Theological Seminary, and so forth to join us in looking at the institutions as a whole. When you begin to talk about shuttle buses, you begin to talk about that.  Let me get to a touchier subject, if I may. [Laughter]. Someone used the word ‘workforce’. I like to think that that is something that is still valuable in this country. Would it be possible to think about lots of people as constituting a workforce? The immigrants who are here, the problems of their lives, the problems of their sense of community, and where they fit into this question...the problems of single...Could there be, for example, be dormitories for single people who are, perhaps temporarily, or working here. Could there be a sense that the community consists of a more complex workforce than just assistant professors and up? A little further on that, would it be possible to think about going beyond the standard requirements for affordable housing...Sheldon you are going to love me for this....Affordable housing, now, as I understand it, 10-20%. Palmer Square is going to have 10% when it gets built. 20% is required. One of the strange limitations is that it can’t be specified for local residents. On the other hand...Peter, I want you to see this...I am reading Crains Business!...it has to do with politics. The City of New York has decided to invest its pension funds to build affordable housing for the city’s teachers. For its workforce. Now that is a fantastic idea! We have anither group...Is Mike Keeley here? He was here, I will speak for him. Mike is interested in providing, having retired faculty, emeritus faculty, be a source of housing so they don’t leave and go to Meadow Lakes and Stonebridge. But they could stay and have a retirement neighborhood, with all of the intellectual fervor that that would create. The question really is: Could we have more targeted housing, led by the public sector, as New York is now doing?

Lance Liverman: I think when it is Federally funded, that is when the issues come up with preference. I think when it is private, I am sure it can be a Princeton preference.

David Goldfarb: The irony is that Princeton, more than any other municipality in New Jersey has history of providing affordable housing. If every town were like Princeton there wouldn’t have been a Mt. Laurel lawsuit. And the regulations coming out of that lawsuit wouldn’t be an issue for us.  But unfortunately, many towns in NJ did not recognize an obligation to provide affordable housing. They zoned to make affordability impossible. The Suprem Court said “You can’t do that.” The way the State of NJ responded tis to impose regulation on every community, including Princeton. Those regulations require that we market to a broader area...to parts of Monmouth county. And we can’t provide a Princeton preference. We must comply with those regulations. It is all we can do to comply with those regulations. It is very expensive. Therefore, we don’t have the means to provide affordable housing with a Princeton preference. There are wealthy institutions in the community that may be able to provide housing directly to their lower income workers.

Robert Geddes: But, David, it has an impact on the whole structure and fabric of the community. I understand from a report that 40% of the staff of the university lives in Pennsylvania! Bob, is that fair?

Bob Durkee: Sounds high.

Robert Geddes: But alot, in any case. The traffic impact of that and the commuting time is a serious issue. It is conceievable that it will become in the university’s interest, as well  as in the community’s interest to have more staff housing availability.

David Goldfarb: I can’t answer for the uniiversity, but it is something I would like to see in the community.

Robert Geddes: A question for Tom. You said that change and development are inevitable.  But other communities are more proactive in planning and in policies that control and shape the development. Is it your sense that Princeton is not as proactive as others? Are there examples that you would like us to think about?

Tom Wright: Don’t take that as a blanket condemnation. I was lecturing to students yesterday about this downtown area and the complex we are in. It is remarkable to tell a group of students who are familiar with this place and to tell them “There were people who sued to stop this”. There is a strong, entrenched interest in stopping change...in not allowing things to happen. I think that Princeton Future, as a model, is one that should be closely looked at by other communities. We have this incredible community. It is a place we have moved back twice in my own life. I have a deep attachment to it. At the same time, I don’t want to confuse that with thinking that everything is perfect.

Robert Geddes: Let me try something out on you. There is the tension, ineveitably, between preservation and development. That is why we put preservation and development, paired.  It used to be that there would be redevelopment authorities. Now, quite often, there devlopment corporations...the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Westfield has a downtown development corporation which got a lot of praise in the firt forum in June. Apparently it is working very well. Would it be possible....and would it be a good idea...to try and get a preservation and development corporation, so that you dealt with both of those issues at the same time? And, you would have a Princeton Downtown Preservation and Development Corporation.  Would that make sense to the panel?

Tom Wright: I would think it makes enormous sense. I don’t think preservation and develoopment need to be contradictory. I think what we have set up now...to blast away a little...we create these onsite parking requirements which have become the essential way of stopping projects from moving forward. This is because we don’t have the ability to build the projects on their own, we put on them unduly harsh requirements and then use that to hold things in their tracks. So, I think that a preservation and development corporation...maybe that would be a better way of looking at it. There certainly things we want to maintain, but there also ways that we can improve.

Robert Geddes: Barrie? It would certainly affect the Zoning Board.

Barrie Royce: From my point of view, we do too much in a point way, rather than looking at the community. An overlay district is an option. A development group is an option. Part of the problem, I think, is that many of these ideas are thought to be just another layer of restriction, rather than being seen as a potential way of enabling something good to happen. So that raises the question as to how you ‘sell’ this idea. I believe there has been an effort to get the merchants to recognize that and get together.

Robert Geddes: It is not just about merchants, though.

Barrie Royce: I think broader than that. I think it is where it has been talked about for a long time and nothing has really happened. I believe it is a first class idea.

David Goldfarb: I don’t want to keep harping on the university really, but, there is a danger, as we sit back, that the university is already acting in that capacity. Bob Durkee talked before about preserving retail on Nassau St. We are certainly very grateful for the movie theater. I am not quite so enthusiastic about the university’s ownership of the bookstore...and Thomas Sweet and so on. It is a mixed blessing. In the case of Thomas Sweet, the university owns the building.  It owns commercial property on Nassau St. It owns office property in town. The university has the ability to cross Nassau St and decide how it wants to see the development take place.

Robert Geddes: How does that relate to the idea of a preservation and development corporation?

David Goldfarb: The idea behind a preservation and development district is that you have an independent group of people talking the kinds of businesses they want to attract. It is not something we do here at all. We do not reach out to a bookstore operation. We wouldn’t have gotten one without the university’s fiancial particpation.  We donn’t look around and say “We ought to have this kind of shop.”

Robert Geddes: Should we do that?

David Goldfarb: It is not something the government should do.  It IS something that a SID or preservation & development corporation would and should do. Absolutely.

Robert Geddes: We should look at Westfield, then.

David Goldfarb: Yes.

Lance Liverman: I do think preservation and development work hand in hand. I remember when Bob Hillier came along to do the Waxwood, the plans changed because of the input. It ended up preserving what was there. Input from the community with regard to preservation goes a long, long way.

Robert Geddes: I think we ought to end on the up beat that we all agree that it would be a good idea.

Kevin Wilkes: Except we are not ending. Please stay seated. We are going to continue with open questions from the audience. I would like to invite the three remaing panelists from our first panel to come back up and join us at the front of the room....Bob Durkee, Sandra Persichetti and Bob Hillier. And we willm proceed with questions from the audience. I am going to let Bob Durkee answer one question... he has a burning desire to speak...

Bob Durkee: Bob Geddes suggested that I answer the question about how we have our conversations with the Boro and the Township about our contribution. All I want to say is that we are happy to have that conversation in as public a way as others want to have it. As I think David will know, there was a review early this year of the Borough’s bond rating. As part of that exercise, outside independent folks identified the handful of colleges, universities and towns that they thought were the right comparison to Princeton. They are not the universities we are typically compared to when it comes to our contribution. I would be very happy to have a conversation about the contribution those colleges and universities make. I can tell you they make nowhere near the contribution Princeton makes to this community. So, I’d be happy to do that.  I’d also be happy to talk about the various ways we take on services that otherwise would have to be provided by the commuity, so our contribution can’t be simply measured by dollars. It is a larger discussion than that.

Let me say one other thing on this. If you look at some of the demand that the existence of the university puits on some of the municipal services, some of that has to do with the clubs on Prospect Avenue.  With one, and unfortunately, maybe two exceptions, they are all tax paying entities. So, there tax revenues coming into the community from those entities. Yes, they put demand on municipal services, but they are also tax paying. I have no sympathy for the club that is seeking to get off the tax rolls. But it is important to remember that it is not just university tax dollars coming ino the coffers, that is one example of some other dollars that are coming in that seem to be related to one area that relies on municipal services.  We are happy to have these conversations in whatever forum you want to have them.

Anne Neumann: Thank you very much.  I have a question for Bob Durkee. I’d like to preface it with a remark or two. Tom wright said that the Town-Gown relationship isn’t all about money. And that is absolutely true. I live on Alexander St, and I think the roundabout on the corner of University Place and Alexander St is a terrific idea. The State of New Jersey has singled out Princeton University as ahving an endowment which is beyond the point where it should seek subsidies from the State. I think we should recognize that the endowment is now $14 billion is way out of line with the other non-profits in the town. I have heard Mr. Durkee say that most of Princeton University’s funds are restricted as to how they can be spent due to the donor’s intent. I wonder whether Mr. Durkee doesn’t mean each year’s contributions to the endowment because of the existing endowment of $14bn, isn’t it true that $1 billion is restricted, according to your Treasurer’s Report, one billion is temporarily restricted and of the remaining $12 billion, approximately $2 bn represents Princeton’s property.
Which I take to mean its real property. By my calculations, that leaves $10,000,000,000 of the university’s endowment unrestricted. And, since for the past 10 years, the university’s rate of return has averaged 15.6% on endowmment and since interest on unrestricted endowment is also unrestricted,  that means that the unrestricted $10 bn will grow by $1.5bn  this year. Since Princeton University limits the spending of its endowment to a conservative 4%. A good eal less than other universities. How much of the remaining 11%, or $150,000,000 per year does Princeton University feel it needs to protect its endowment from the slings and arrows of outrageos fortune?

Kevin Wilkes: Did you get all of those numbers?

Bob Durkee: In large measure they are wrong.

Anne Neumann: Let me just finish my question. Princeton University as we all know is tax exempt. If it paid property tax on all of its property, not just the commercial and residential property that Mr. Durkee referred to, the addition to municipal income of the Boro would be about $28,000,000. And that means that the property taxes for me and every single Boro resident would drop by 25%. About 17% in the Township. What I find most remarkable, it would drop by 5% for residents of Mercer County.  Can not the university afford to contribute that $28,000,000 to the Boro, rather than its current voluntary payment in lieu of taxes, which at the present is $1 million. And $9,000 to the Township. Thank you.

Bob Durkee: I don’t know whether Anne was here at the beginning when I mentioned that we have been involved, just yesterday, in submitting testimony to the Senate Finance Committee. If any of you are interested in that I am happy to share it with you. It is all about endowments. The fact of the matter is, and the issue they are focussed on, is that every dollar that has come into that endowment, has come into that endowment becqause the person givng that money was supporting either teaching or research. That is why we are exempt. That is what we do. And, that is what those dollars are for. And, whether the donors specifically said “You must spend it for this aspect of teaching and research...or that aspect” they are still dollars that need to be spent for our exempt purposes. Within our endowment, there are 3,500 separate accounts. Of those, 1,600 are for financial aid. That is a major commitment we make. It is the reason our community is as diverse as it is. More than half of our class is on financial aid. More than 1/3 of our class comes from previously unrepresented groups. Those are the kinds of commitments we make. As I said earleir, we are prepared to take some of those funds, when it is appropriate, to contribute them to community purposes, even though it is not specifically what the people who contributed those funds had in mind. About half of the endowment is in fact restricted by the donor. There are other funds that reflect the interests of the donor. There are some dollars that are given to mus