Spruce Street Objectors Take Aim At Another Component of Princeton’s Affordable Housing Plan

Objector graphic showing imagined concept of development plan at 86-88 Spruce Street

In February and March of this year, the Princeton Planning Board and Council approved ordinances to ensure that the town could meet the requirements of its Fourth Round Fair Housing Plan. The Fourth Round plan is required to meet state requirements for affordable housing. As we reported last year (Report: Town of Princeton Embraces ‘Smart Growth’ With Proposed Sites For New Affordable Housing), one of the proposed sites for affordable housing is at 86 Spruce Street (map). Land there would be redeveloped with a small apartment building and some townhouses. When complete, the development would add 30 walkable homes, including eight affordable homes. The surrounding ‘Tree Streets’ neighborhood is made up of small apartment buildings and single-family homes on compact lots.

Affordable housing proposals are often the subject of litigation in Princeton, and this one is no exception. Adam Wolf and Michelle Fuerst, residents of Spruce Street, have lawyered up and filed a challenge to the approval of the Spruce Street inclusionary housing plan. Their lawsuit was filed last week in Mercer Superior Court, with docket #MER-L-000819-26. The Mayor and Council of Princeton, the Princeton Planning Board, and the developer are named as defendants.

The lawsuit lays out a catalog of complaints that are discussed further on a website, launched by Wolf, which aims to rally neighbors to the cause. The website describes the proposed redevelopment as “The Monster on Spruce Street”, and is illustrated by an entirely fictitious graphic showing a five-story building towering over a neighborhood that resembles Princeton’s Tree Streets.

The graphic is completely implausible, not least because the neighborhood appears to be populated by cartoon animals. All the existing buildings are drawn as if they were 6 inches tall, making the ‘new’ building seem particularly enormous. The building shown, the titular ‘Monster’ of Spruce Street, is also completely inconsistent with concept plans for the site. Plans filed as an appendix to Princeton’s court-approved Fourth Round housing plan show a number of new structures up to a maximum of three stories. The idea that a five-story building is coming to the site is a complete misrepresentation.

The building shown in the ‘Monster of Spruce Street’ graphic does bear an uncanny resemblance to another inclusionary housing project, however. That would be the ‘195 Nassau‘ development, which was recently completed about a quarter of a mile away from the 86 Spruce Street site, at Nassau Street and Charlton Street. It really does rise to five stories, and has a very distinctive design and cladding:

Suspiciously similar: Was this newly-constructed building an inspiration for the Spruce Street objectors?

As noted recently, the developers of 195 Nassau are using fake images generated by AI to market their apartments (Report: New Princeton Apartment Community Using AI Slop Images For Website Marketing). The design of their own building now appears to have been ripped-off to produce some more AI slop, in this case serving the interests of an objector group. 195 Nassau Street is no ‘monster’ either. The building does rise to five stories, but it is set back behind other buildings, so that its height is masked from the street. It does a good job of providing walkable housing that is contextual to nearby buildings.

Wolf and Fuerst join a cavalcade of objectors who have tried to block or downsize affordable housing developments in Princeton in recent years. The Old Orchard Homeowners’ Assocation tried unsuccessfully to block construction of sixty-three new affordable homes, which were ultimately built as ‘The Residences at Herrontown‘. The ‘Save Jugtown’ group succeeded in downsizing a proposed inclusionary housing development at 344 Nassau Street. Two groups, ‘Defend Historic Princeton’ and ‘Princeton Coalition For Responsible Development’ have fought a years-long effort to stop or reduce proposed inclusionary housing off Stockton Street. Even when these groups lose in court, they can delay housing construction for years, and cost the town a small fortune in legal fees, as noted recently by Councilman Leighton Newlin.

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