Princeton developers propose 98 apartments but must cut down 150-year-old tree

Residents of downtown Princeton will soon face a choice between new housing and a historic tree. On November 5, the local Planning Board will vote on a plan to build 98 apartments on a one-acre lot behind Jay’s Cycle store on Nassau Street. The project includes 19 affordable housing units and a 75-car underground garage.

The applicant, a Hopewell-based firm named 245 Nassau, LLC, submitted documents detailing the building’s layout. The residential section will feature 18 studios, 44 one-bedroom units, 25 two-bedroom units, and 8 three-bedroom units. Access to the parking, retail space, and lobby will be directly from Nassau Street.

The design includes a 980-square-foot retail pad and a 1,620-square-foot fitness center. Other amenities listed in the application are a common living room, kitchen, lounge, coworking space, pet spa, and an outdoor elevated courtyard. The building will also have an 11,500-square-foot green roof. The exterior will use red thin brick, hexagonal shingle roofs, limestone cladding, fiber cement siding, and black trim.

The biggest point of contention is the removal of approximately 86 trees. Dan Dobromilsky, a consultant for the board, identified this as a substantial concern. The site plan requires cutting down a 54-inch Ginkgo tree that has stood in Princeton for about 150 years. Dobromilsky noted that the tree appears damaged by prior construction and that more than half of the trees on the site are exotic invasive species, including Norway maple and Tree of Heaven.

The Princeton Shade Tree Commission and the Princeton Environmental Commission both reviewed the application. Their reports stated that removing the trees contradicts the town’s goal of preserving and expanding the local tree canopy. Both groups suggested that the building be reconfigured to reduce its impact on the neighborhood’s existing trees.

Mark Cifelli, the civil engineer for the application from PS&S, told the board that the applicant will replace 108 trees according to municipal code. Of those, 46 will be planted on the western side of the building and on the green roof. The rest will be a mix of shade, ornamental, and evergreen trees. The applicant will plant six trees off-site or pay into the town’s tree fund for the remaining replacements.

Chairwoman Louise Wilson expressed a preference for preserving existing trees and planting replacements within the same neighborhood. Mayor Mark Freda voiced stronger opposition to the current replacement ratio. “I know what our ordinance says, but to say that we are going to replace a 54-inch diameter tree with four two-and-a-half-inch diameter trees, I just don’t get it,” he said. “There is just no way that that is in any way correct, right, or what should be done here.”

Board member Claudia Wilson Anderson suggested adding a condition to the approval. She proposed that any deciduous trees removed from the site must be replaced with deciduous trees off-site. She argued against using evergreen trees as simple buffers for the building’s roof. The board may attach additional conditions to the final approval on November 5.