April 17, 2002 Borough Hall
Zone 3 Workshop minutes                               

Present: Ingrid Reed, Molly Finnell, Robert Geddes, Evelyn Geddes, Robert Durkee, Jon Hlafter, Robert Brown, Pam Hersh, Epp Kuhn, Hank Pannell, Wanda Gunning, Pat Lamb, Reggie Jefferies, Bo Honore, Martin Carey, Russ McFarlan, Lillian Israel, Marvin Israel, Marvin Reed, Ron Berlin, Wendy Benchley, Amy Brummer, Sheldon Sturges

RG: Tonight is the third of these sessions in which Bob Brown, who is an urban planner and who is working with us, will be responding to what occurred at the Princeton Future Workshop about 10 days ago in which many of you came and spoke very eloquently about the possibilities and ideas from the neighbor’s point of view. It was a non-structured event. And that’s the whole point of it. You don’t into the first Workshop meeting knowing what the answer is. You go in listening. And that was very successful. And, tonight that is what Bob Brown will respond to. As you know tonight’s meeting has to do with Zone Three. It consists, unlike other areas, zones, we’ve looked at in Zone 5 and Zone 4, of three identifiable, individual owners. The Ys, the University and the Hospital, Merwick. It also consists of very major open space, as you will see from the aerial photograph here... It is different from what we’ve talked about before. Without trying to overstep the boundaries of being a consumer of this presentation, I would to turn it over to Bob and to thank the Mayor and Wendy Benchley for coming tonight and making it a truly civic event.

RB: This is truly one of the most unusual projects I’ve ever worked on. The way the community is actually telling me what is important…and bringing forth ideas. I don’t know how many of you were at the Saturday Workshop. Sheldon Sturges took minutes. The minutes were very poetic. What you folks said was very poetic. I kind of summarize what the neighbors said. Then I make some suggestions and then what you could do about it. It was very hard to edit, to choose. I wanted to say everything. There were so many good things said. You know where we are. The Y, Merwick, Stanworth. It feels open. There is empty land in the back. The buildings back up on Leigh and John St. This is the street pattern. Driveway here…and here. This is the street pattern. When I went to Lee Solow. He said: “What can you do out here?... You can’t make a left turn here on either Bayard or Robeson”. It is very hard to do anything because of the difficulty of acce. This is the first of 2 series of slides. The first category is open space. This is the largest open space near the downtown. It’s a huge responsibility for all of you to figure out what to do with it. Someone observed that the three institutions are beloved. You can’t underestimate the importance of that fact. Bayard Lane is a great historic approach to Princeton. JW Neighborhood is small-scale, multi-us, independent shops, interactive with churches, restaurants, as well as people living there. It’s a remarkable neighborhood, it is part of this. Half the boundary of site is made up of backyards. There is a scale and character about that. I don’t know if it is really called ‘Green Hill’, you’ve been calling it that, it seems to be a nice name. If you make open space, you should make open space for everybody. There is a commonality of all the folks who come here. We need playgrounds. Amazing. We need housing for the elderly. We currently put our elderly on ice flows and send them to Jamesburg. Folks suggest uses. Senior houses, a playground, a community garden, a grocery store. A laundry. At Stanworth there are 2 sidewalks along 206. Green space around Ys. Isolated character of Bramwell House. Here is a picture of the forest in back. This is the second set of observations, which I thought was really brilliant: this made it easier for me to think about. It’s about re-connecting the town. The folks who live West of Bayard Lane said that Rte. 206 divides the town 1/3-2/3rds. “Make Princeton integral, connected again”. “I have three children, I’d love to walk to the school: Crossing 206 is daunting etc”. See slides. “We’re so close to the downtown, it’s too bad we can’t take advantage of the downtown, unless they drive”. Mayor was quoted: “We may have to put more traffic lights on 206”. There was applause. There are three informal connections between John St and Merwick/Stanworth. The need to get across is there. This ought to be a place where you can learn to walk again (at Merwick), baby-sit for young families (at Stanworth), a place to do volunteer work, tutor at the library. Vision of all kinds of people doing all kinds of things. Everybody had answers. Then it was said, near the end, I’m hearing something very positive: Pedestrian connectiveness. Over the years we’ve heard the opposite: fears of people coming into the neighborhoods, which closes off neighborhoods. That’s not an attitude in Princeton. I’ve worked in communities where people say that people will come down the path and steal TV sets, things like that. That’s not the case here. A permeable neighborhood, like the other neighborhoods. If you want to get this intersection, you have to walk backwards. This about walking. There are no-sidewalk sidewalks. Hole in the fence. There is a need but barriers. People are just doing it. The new head of the hospital was there. The Ys were there. 50% of activities take place off-site. Options are limited by parking capacity. Biggest use is pool. Always filled. This is what they said… Everybody loves the open space of the green. The historic character of the original landscape of Merwick ought to be preserved. One of the few remaining original estates here. Might put other aspects of senior living there. They are asking for 100,000 sq ft on Witherspoon St. What should happen on Bayard Lane? We need a holistic view of what the hospital does. The allée of sycamores. The university suggested a higher density. PU has been asked to provide more affordable housing for its own staff in the town. There was feeling that we could talk together…instead of solving problems one at a time.

The first tool is that the three institutions get together and form a collaborative plan. The Boro won’t impose a plan. But we can suggest things. Walkways. Share parking. Share community green or garden. The zoning is slightly out of whack. I have talked to the zoning officer. This is the way it works now: 5 different driveways act independently. I was thinking if they could just act together. If you get another internal roadway from Stanworth: in from Chambers St. You’d get intersections that might justify signalizations. Crosswalks. Because you’d have other ways out, you could make a left turn. A diagram of a conceptual idea of how to think about internal driveways to solve external problems.

MI: The amount of traffic from Merwick to the Y is going to be zero. I am concerned about building through fares there. It will promote more traffic.

RB: It’s a way to look at it. The same is true of walkways. Here is the sidewalk that is needed. If the internal roadways were improved, it would change the public perception. If you had that road through. I talked to Charles Carmalt. This goes back to our discussion on the last Zone, Witherspoon St, there is not enough room from the face of shops, face of church, to parking for shops… to roadway, for bikeway on Witherspoon. My opinion is you can’t. If that’s the case, then a bikeway here almost does it, especially if you make crosswalks across the street. If everyone works together, and overlay the network for walkways and driveways, it will improve the quality of circulation. Zoning. Stanworth is R4…seems about right. Single family, R1: Ys and Merwick are permitted conditional use, one story residential, with certain parking requirements. The zoning might be changed if there was an agreement between the three institutions. So every month I come, I write a vision: Connect the entire community. Increase the density, but preserve open space. Make a place where people collaborate. Your values are not to be isolated from each other, which is the way it is now. This is what you said. Links. Collaboration. I’m pleased by that. We come together with a document as the Township and Boro are re-evaluating our Community Master Plan. Next month it will be Zone Two. That’s my show.

RonB: Why didn’t you consider an automobile link that crosses over from the JW neighborhood to Bayard. Automobile connections from JW to Stanworth to 206…It would increase the web of choices for cars and keep the traffic from becoming too concentrated on any one street, the way it is now. Everyone crowds on Robeson.

RG: The law of unintended consequences: Whenever we tamper with automobiles. Cleveland Lane to MacLean would increase the traffic into the neighborhood. It would be useful to Cleveland Lane.

RonB: The connection I remember is further up. By the Moss playground park.

IR: By the John St gate…from the Merwick/Y lot people can’t make the logical way into town.

MC: We lock the gate to John St. at 6 AM and open it at 3PM. We have a big problem who don’t want to pay to park in Princeton. So we can identify people. We are sensitive to keeping the facility open to the public. If it’s causing a problem we’d like to hear. I realize that parking and traffic are taking over our life. It seems as if, with minimum investment, a garden and planted walkways could be built. The hard part is getting people there from the downtown, going all the way back to the school. You could do some pretty nice things there.

IR: I understand. It makes these suggestions that much more important.

RB: The reason, I brought up the car question is that people from the west side can’t get across. If there was someway to get another crosswalk.

MC: Couldn’t the people from the west side come through the properties?

MI: Don’t see the need for 2 roadways down the center. There are also wide, nicely lit tunnels that could go under 206.

MR: You should talk to the DOT, which had a special study done about bicycle and pedestrian improvements. It can be done. It gets to be quite expensive. To acquire the land, build retaining walls. You get into the question: who will pay for it? Who will pay the landowners? Will the state do it? There has been talk about a light at Cleveland and Bayard. If you put a traffic light there, the residents want a cul-de-sac there. Instead of using Hodge, they’d be more inclined to use Cleveland Lane, everyone said move the traffic to any street but my own. It cries out for a light at Cleveland or Westcott.

WB: The follow up was to do one-way roads, so that you’d get traffic in the AM and not in the PM. In the end there was a more equitable result. It would be fair if we could distribute the traffic across all three roads. I get calls all the time: please crosswalks and sidewalks. That might be a priority for the Boro… Use that money to get a sidewalk there to be able to travel to the light.

MR: The other thing, Charlie Carmalt had that same going out to Race Street. When you do that, you’re going to have to pick a house on Leigh and ‘take it out’. Similarly there are several places along John St. … that are rights of way for pedestrians. The University and The Medical Center own rights of way. You will have to have serious discussions with neighbors on John if there are going to be connections.

WB: They are worried about roads, not pedestrian walkways.

RB: What I heard was that whatever we do, we have to have equal benefit for all.

BH: I live on Cleveland and Bayard. For 7 years. We have begged for a light there. It is clear I don’t own the land up to the road. I have to mow the lawn there at great risk, because I have to walk on 206 to do it. Another thing is that we have been re-districted. We go to Community Park School. We need to be able to walk.

MR: If you can tell me that there are a lot of you on Cleveland Lane that would be great. We had each street fighting against each other. Cutting down the speed seemed to be the common ground. It was awful. If Cleveland would accept cooperation, I think we’d get immediate approval from the DOT.

EK: What about Leigh? I don’t want Cleveland people rushing through my street.

WB: Maybe we can have lights at Leigh & Cleveland.

BH: A sidewalk would solve many problems.

WB: I am hoping we get a light at Valley Rd. That would really slow the trucks down.

EK: Speed bumps can really slow the traffic down.

BH: The sidewalk would really help.

MR: The DOT would say you can’t have too many lights too close to each other. From a technical point of view it would be better to have synchronized lights. There is a political problem in getting people to understand it really would be advantageous.

RB: It is interesting to see how many circumstances have forced people to go in certain ways.

MR: Wherever there are goat trails, you should look at it very carefully.

IR: Since I frequent Paul Robeson Place quite a bit. Paul Robeson is very different in this area, from the other part. It is still a village quality here, where the other part between John and Witherspoon is really suburbanized. It is very hard for me to think about this area, without thinking about the quality of walking along Paul Robeson as part of this effort. I understand the Y’s fence being there. It would be so different if you could walk into the Y halfway down the fence. Now since I cross a lot at John and walk to Dorothea House, that potential street would change the configuration, of the way we think about the area to make it much more like the Princeton we know. And it offers some interesting possibilities. The other thing you notice when you walk along Paul Robeson is how differently we thought of buildings in the 50’s and sixties, the Y, that is, than we would today. Today I would hope that the building would be up against the sidewalk and we’d know where to enter it. The whole corner of Paul Robeson and the front of the Y is so anti what we’ve been talking about here… about people feeling comfortable and moving around. It is totally oriented to the automobile. There are a lot of people that turn in and out of the Y driveway that if you had a simple two-lane road there would make for an entirely different configuration of what you would do with that space. The possibility of integrating where people live at Stanworth and Merwick. It would give a chance for the Y to completely re-build their facility so that they are part of the community. They aren’t now. It would possible to think of Paul Robeson as a neighborhood again.

RB: It is now more pleasant to walk through the JW neighborhood to the Y.

MC: If you can think of Paul Robeson as coming up from Wiggins to the Arts Council, you really have a cultural, recreational area with some green space. Only three people come to the Y by bike per day. People just don’t walk. I don’t know who designed the building! You’ve made a good comment. It’s not user friendly for everyone. If you go north up through Withersponn, user-friendly for children and mothers with strollers. It would improve the whole downtown.

MI: I drive down that street. What is unpleasant is the traffic whizzing by. I ride on the sidewalk. You will get whacked by a car. Maybe we can build a walkway away from the traffic.

WB: Talking about walking along the sidewalk there: The sidewalk is right next to the street. The kids walk right next to the street. It’s same with sidewalk on Wiggins by the Cemetery. It is terrifying. There ought to be green between the sidewalk and the street.

_____: I want to second the idea of more density at Merwick.

RG: Can I ask? The fundamental question here is going to be a process question. Should there, could there be collaboration between the three institutions? May I say, Princeton Future’s plan will be done this summer? This is an era of good feeling. It is not just a matter of a physical plan.

MI: If the Boro doesn’t facilitate it, there will be issues of backed-up parking and walkways.

RG: You’re right. One could imagine a task force that would include 4 ingredients, a commission of the 3 institutions and the Boro

PL: The collaboration you’re looking for is the issue of reviewing walkways and….

RB: That’s a start.

RG: The nature of the open space. The issue that has really come up is “Permeability”. Let’s have permeability at Cleveland Ln. The actual way to get it is not so obvious.

RB: The town we know is a town of streets and blocks. It is an interesting question. If you take a large block and divide it into capillaries. Treating it as the Tree Streets. Share the wealth…the traffic. I am not answering the question.

RG: Last year we talked of taking the scale of the JW neighborhood and move it over. Not have any rhetorical statements about edge and center. We know more. Each area has a life. It might change incrementally. The basic scheme may well be there. May well be there for a long time. Some of our early, more naïve thoughts come up against more knowledge this year.

IR: Would Princeton Future be willing to look at this area again with Bob being more of an architect? Because one can imagine: what is the development potential of it complementing the villagescape of Princeton? If you left everything as is. And you were only filling in the open space. With the Y building staying where it is…the big Merwick building stays where it is…Stanworth doesn’t change very much. What is the potential for development? And, then, is there another alternative: The Y pool is nearly 40 years old. If the Y building on the corner might be two stories as opposed to one. What would you do? How would it look if you respected the front doors of streets? If it had a scale and a look. If you complemented the Bayard Lane houses with development on the other side that had a scale and a look. Even if the uses were different. If Stanworth were re-done to have a scale and a look like the JW neighborhood. What would happen if you didn’t have a green space and a chain link fence on Paul Robeson, and if it was faced with buildings the way Hodge Rd is faced with buildings? That would change the traffic going through there, as well. And where would you put a parking garage if you wanted to snuggle it in some place so that it would be useful to the Y and other businesses the Downtown? That might help the institutions think about what they want. If you came up with some other alternatives that included what an architect thinks, in addition to what a planner thinks.

RG: Sure! Absolutely right. And it is one of the dilemmas always. When you are doing an overall plan, that some of the details need to be worked out at the same time. Frankly, that is what we are doing and discovering. We’ll bring this to a conclusion this summer with things like that ready to go…to do next. I always used to say when I was teaching this stuff that, no matter what scale you are working at, you always need to think of a scale larger and a scale smaller. You could argue that to really do this that you need to think of the larger scale: The Route One City and the Medical Center’s needs. 50% of the Y activity is off-site. Then at the scale of the entrances to the building and the play yards. We are at the middle scale now. I should leave you with one thought though. It is very much more expensive to design, the closer you get to the human body. It costs you more to design a fireplace. A chair...My God, as my buddy, Michael Graves,…to design a whatever it is…That is what you are challenging us to do…We have to think how we organize how we to do such a thing in the next go around. That’s why the fashion industry exists.

RJ: I’m from the YW. I just want to mention that the Youth of Princeton don’t have an official place to go. A place to hang out. As a student at Hun, I experienced this problem. I thought that maybe this area could be used as a Skate Park. It takes youth that might be headed down the road to trouble, it brings them back and gives them a constructive outlet. Next to the Y, walking distance to the Library. Using their time and energy well. All types if kids skateboard. They want a half-pipe. Street obstacles. They want a place for them.

SS: This afternoon on the steps of the Post Office, there were 8-9 kids with spiked hair and skateboards on the steps.

RB: A place where kids can feel a sense of freedom. The way kids in NYC use playgrounds.

RJ: About the size of 2 tennis courts.

WB: It could look like an urban park.

JH: Has any mention been made of a commercial component of this? It seems to me that if there could be a small convenience store here somewhere near that park that could attract people from the neighborhoods. Both east and west. It might be an interesting small piece that would a complement to the skate park and community garden. If new zoning were created for this space...

RB: We have to look at what you have to do to support such a store. Traffic etc.

WB: This is such an interesting area, I would hope that through Princeton Future, or in some fashion, we could pursue this.

MC: I never thought outwards towards Stanworth before. I do think from the Y’s point of view, while it is private property. I think we are all community-minded. We want to say we[the Ys] are here for the community.

PL: We’re here [the hospital] and we want to be good neighbors. We are part of the community. We would be happy to together to pursue these conversations.

WB: It is good to have Bob Geddes and Bob Brown there to help us conceptualize and to all think out of the box.

MR: One of the tings that has been noted, there were 3 separate estates. [The Avalon estate, Merwick, Stanworth-the Sloanes. He co-founded the Olympics, I think]. They probably developed in a closed-off way. As they evolved each estate became an institution. It happened individually. If there were that spirit of collaboration, it would be well worthwhile for the Boro to be a party of the discussion and facilitate it. It would also help if each of the 3 collaborators thought about what their future growth and development plans might be, even if they don’t think they are ready right now.

RB: And the problems each has…

MR: It is harder to deal with each one separately and individually. It is not as practical as thinking as how the property develops in relationship to the other two. All three work together and then put their separate visions on the table.

RD: I don’t think that the challenge is not so much facilitating the 3 institutions to talk together as it is to make sure that as we get together, we have as clear an understanding as we can of what the folks who are neighbors on this side and what the neighbors on that side are interested in. Part of what we need to be sure is that we have an iterative process. Make sure that these kinds of conversations happen that brings the neighbors together. How that happens we can sort out. Left to our own devices, I’m sure we won’t get it right. The answer is someplace in between. To make sure that we continue to talk to the neighbors

RG: You make the case for there to be 5 ingredients: The 3 institutions, the Boro and Princeton Future.

WB: That makes sense.

PH: This community has learned what happens if you don’t really collaborate with the neighborhoods. Of going too far. We have all learned the hazards of not talking to the people living and working in the area.

RG: Once again, Robert. Thank you…and thank you all for coming.