Princeton officials expect to unveil possible sites for affordable housing

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Princeton officials will reveal a draft list next week of approximately a dozen sites in town where they have identified new affordable housing could be built, as they seek to comply with a court mandated housing obligation.

The Princeton Council and Planning Board are scheduled to meet jointly on May 17, when members of the public will get their first look at the areas of town officials have been discussing where developments of 100 percent affordable housing and a mix of affordable housing and market rate units could go, and how many units would be built at a specific location.

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Municipal officials have to create a plan to meet a requirement for 753 affordable housing units that state Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson, sitting in Trenton, set in March for the municipality, for a span from 1999 to 2025.

“We’re still in the process of developing the plan,” Municipal Administrator Marc D. Dashield said on May 7.

The report will be backward- and forward-looking to show what has been done already in the past 20 years and what needs to be done in the future to meet the 753-unit figure.

Officials have said affordable housing has been built in Princeton during that time, but they could not give a precise figure for how many new units will need to be constructed.

Per a series of state Supreme Court rulings, municipalities must use their zoning power to provide opportunities for the development of affordable housing. Princeton officials will need to submit a plan to Jacobson in June for her approval and a have a hearing before the judge in July.

“Once we’ve gotten the plan approved by the court, we’ll introduce all the ordinances and resolutions for introduction and adoption in August,” Dashield said.

Municipal officials touched on the approaches the municipality plans to take to meet its obligation.

Mayor Liz Lempert raised the prospect of group homes and inclusionary developments. At the moment, Princeton has a 20-percent set aside in mixed developments, so for every 10 market rate units a developer builds, two units have to be affordable or below market rate.

“We’re working on a couple of different goals … as we put the plan together,” she said. “One of them is that the housing isn’t concentrated all in one location. Another goal is to make sure that … getting around is affordable for the people who live there, meaning that either it’s walkable, bikeable or on or near an existing transit route.”

Pressed on whether the affordable housing would be located in wealthier parts of town, Lempert said that through the years, officials had done a “reasonable job of distributing affordable housing throughout a lot of different neighborhoods.”

She said the town is not required to identify where potential group homes have to be built.

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