Produce at Nassau Street Seafood & Produce in Princeton. (click to expand.)
Princeton is lucky to have a number of really great local businesses. Despite the combined onslaught of the big box chain stores and internet shopping, these businesses have survived and play a great part in making our town an interesting place to live. We all want our local merchants to be successful, and one way we can help them is by increasing the amount of walkable housing. Walkable housing helps Continue reading
Tent Rock in Woodfield Reservation in Princeton (Click to expand.)
The Woodfield Reservation is one of the largest tracts of preserved land in Princeton, but the trails are very lightly walked. The park is at the very edge of Princeton, between Great Road and Drakes Corner Road. Visitors often look for two large boulders along the trails. Continue reading
Expensive: Maintenance of Princeton’s street trees looks set to be another burden on local taxpayers. (click to expand)
Many of us know what it’s like to care for an elderly relative. It takes a lot of time, commitment, and often a lot of money too. Princeton’s taxpayers are now facing another concern: the burden of caring for aging suburban infrastructure. Continue reading
A successful multi-family development in Spring Street in Princeton- but New Jersey towns are not building anywhere near enough housing like this. (Click to expand.)
The New Jersey Chapter of the American Planning Association heard a plea at their recent annual conference to stop fix the housing market by phasing out dysfunctional planning and zoning practices. Real estate expert Jeffrey Otteau told the conference that Jersey is not building anything like enough housing, and is building the wrong types of housing. Continue reading
“I’m still standing-yeah yeah yeah”…the old hospital has been lying derelict for months as Princeton argues about a redevelopment that most people think is a perfectly good idea. (click to expand.)
Princeton municipal officials are poised to spin through the doors of the Mercer Superior Court in Trenton once again as a new set of local residents petitions against the decision to build apartments on the old Princeton Hospital site. Tens of thousands of dollars have now been spent on attorney fees, to defend the municipality and Planning Board against resident law suits and court actions objecting to the plan. But what does Princeton really think? Continue reading
Circulation and parking plan for 255 Nassau Street ‘Plan B’. (click to expand)
Last week, we published a rendering of the proposed new mixed-use development at 255 Nassau Street, Princeton. A bank will occupy the first floor, with residential housing at the back of the first floor, and on the second and third levels. The latest plan follows on from a previous version, which was rejected by the Princeton Zoning Board of Adjustment last year. The original application became a subject of concerns about parking and circulation. What is proposed in the new plan? Continue reading
A Tiny House from the short film ‘Tiny- A Story About Living Small’…Is this an answer to sustainability and affordability challenges? (Click to expand – image via PEFF website).
‘Dream Big, Live Small’ is the motto of a 62-min movie to play at the [excellent] Princeton Environmental Film Festival this Friday, Feb 5 at 4 p.m. at the Princeton Public Library. The film, ‘Tiny: A Story About Living Small’ focuses on a couple who chose to disregard the trend for ever-larger homes, and instead build their own little corner of the world. The emphasis is clearly on the ‘little’, as the home they seek to construct a ‘tiny house’ of just 124 sq ft. It has a living space with an 11-foot ceiling, a small galley kitchen, a small bathroom with a composting toilet and camping-style gravity fed shower and a sleeping loft. Continue reading
The D&R Canal near Princeton. (Click to expand.)
The D&R Canal Commission issued an extraordinary planning decision last month, over-ruling the recommendation of their own staff and rejecting a plan by Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study to develop part of their land as faculty housing. The case raises interesting questions about who is in charge of planning in Central Jersey… Continue reading
New roundabout in Princeton, looking south along Alexander Street. The WaWa and University Place are accessed via an exit at the left of the picture. (Click to expand.)
A roundabout! Does that word fill you with fear? Well, it’s time to get over it, because Princeton has a new roundabout, at the intersection of Alexander Street and University Place, near the old Dinky Station. This road is one of the busiest entry points to Princeton, so the success of the new traffic layout is essential. We went by to see how the new roundabout looks.
Crowds fill Palmer Square at Communiversity 2013. (Click to expand.)
College towns that are considered the best in the nation have pedestrianized downtown areas. Every summer, Princeton closes streets around Palmer Square for events like Communiversity and Princeton JazzFeast- events that are wildly popular, and bring thousands of people into town. Despite this, for most of the year, a huge amount of space around Palmer Square is given over to on-street parking, encouraging drivers to circle the downtown looking for a convenient park, increasing pedestrian-car conflicts and limiting space available for outdoor dining, art and street performances. This raises the question: why doesn’t Princeton pedestrianize the streets around Palmer Square permanently? And the answer is…it already happened, but Princeton failed to make it stick! Continue reading
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