Princeton School Board’s proposal for $85 million of improvents at three local schools received a very mixed reception from the Princeton Planning Board at their ‘courtesy review’ last week. As reported previously (First Look: Preliminary Site Plans for Additions And Expanded Parking at Three Princeton Public Schools), the School Board is proposing a bond referendum for next year, which would give local voters the chance to approve additions at Community Park Elementary School, Littlebrook Elementary School, and Princeton Middle School. The School District Superintendent, Kathie Foster, spoke about how excited she was about the proposals, which apparently have been under development since 2019. But it quickly became clear that several aspects of the plans need further consideration.

Although the plans for the new buildings were fairly well received, the proposed new parking lot at Community Park Elementary School came in for significant criticism from the town’s chief planner, Justin Lesko. The School District’s plan would involve cutting down a bunch of trees and paving a green landscaped area at the front of the school, to make a new parking lot for 36 cars. The new parking lot would not connect to the existing parking area or driveways in Community Park School. Drivers would instead enter the parking lot from a new entrance off of Witherspoon Street, and then exit it by driving through the parking lot of the site next door (300 Witherspoon St), which houses ‘TigerLabs’, a healthcare center, and the ‘Homestead Princeton’ store.

Lesko pointed out a number of reasons why the parking lot should not or could not be built. It is not clear that permission has been sought, or granted, from the owners of the 300 Witherspoon St site for traffic to pass through their property. Making a new connection to the school would require removing parking spaces from the 300 Witherspoon St site that were required as part of a recent minor site plan approval. Creating a new turn off of Witherspoon Street would further complicate traffic during school pickup and drop-off times. Increasing impermeable coverage would create stormwater runoff problems. Removing trees is considered highly undesirable in an area that lacks open spaces.

In response, the school district’s architect said that the school district might possibly change the plan for the parking lot. But the plan was already been sent to the state Board of Education for approval, despite the Planning Department raising concerns about the proposal in July. It appears that the School Board disregarded the advice of the Planning Department. The School Board also failed to supply the Planning Department with a long-range planning strategy in a timely fashion, leading to a delay in the Planning Board’s review of the proposed capital improvements (report via ‘Tap into Princeton”: Delay in Getting Princeton Schools’ Long Range Facilities Plan Causes Postponement of Planning Board Review).

Members of the Planning Board had broader questions about why new parking lots were being proposed at Community Park Elementary School and Littlebrook School. Had any studies or estimates been done about how much off-street parking was needed? It turned out that the School District had done no such analysis, but instead tried to add parking lots fairly randomly where space was available.

Louise Wilson, Chair of the Planning Board, asked if the School District had done anything in their planning to facilitate students walking or bicycling to school. In response, Matt Bouldin, the business adminstrator for the School District, advised that walking or bicycling to school had not factored into any of the planning efforts so far.

The School District is not obligated at this time to follow recommendations from the Planning Board about proposed capital improvements, but the Board’s memo will be passed to the State Department of Education, which is considering whether to allow the bond referendum that would fund the improvements to go ahead. If the bond referendum is passed, the Planning Board would have jurisdiction to determine whether the site improvements can be built, as schools are considered a ‘conditional use‘ under Princeton zoning ordinances.

Related materials (via princetonnj.gov):

• Draft memo from planning staff regarding Princeton Public Schools proposed capital improvements
• Video of Planning Board meeting (discussion of schools starts at 12’41”)