PRINCETON: Town agrees to pay AvalonBay $50,000 to settle lawsuit

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton agreed to pay developer AvalonBay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit that the company had filed against the municipality earlier this year in a dispute about money.
The conflict concerned some $90,000 from an escrow account AvalonBay had created, funds that the town used to pay a engineering firm to keep tabs on construction at the former Princeton Hospital, according to the municipality. AvalonBay, claiming the consultant did "mostly" observational, not engineering, work and that "some" of its employees were not licensed engineers, sued in state Superior Court, in May. But the two sides resolved the case.
Mayor Liz Lempert, addressing reporters at her press conference Monday, said the town was settling to avoid incurring further legal costs and to “conserve staff resources.”
She recalled that officials had pledged to the public, before and during construction of the 280-unit project, that they “would do everything within our power to ensure that the development was safe.”
“And we did that,” she said. “We said this was our responsibility, we believed it and I think the work that was done is testament to that.”
The settlement is less than AvalonBay had originally been looking for last year, when it demanded that $100,000 be refunded. AvalonBay Vice President Jon Vogel did not respond to an email seeking comment.
As part of the deal, the town did not admit wrongdoing. In fact, officials stressed they were within their rights to do what they did.
“To be clear, it has been and remains our position that the charges to Avalon’s escrow account were proper and appropriate under the Municipal Land Use Law, and Princeton at all times has been prepared to defend itself against Avalon’s claims,” municipal attorney Trishka W. Cecil wrote in an Aug.3 memo to Mayor Lempert and the Council.
“The municipality stands by the fact that these charges were proper,” Mayor Lempert said.
This was but the latest legal battle between the town and AvalonBay, who sued the town to be able to build the project and sued again to challenge how long it must keep 56 apartments at below market rate.