Local board approves battlefield construction

The decision came after the board heard the IAS project proposal in four public meetings held from December to February. The Institute, which has owned the land since the 1930s, has been seeking to build new housing facilities since 2003, alleging that the rising value of the nearby real estate makes it unaffordable for its faculty members.

The approved plan represents a compromise fostered by two Pulitzer Prize winners, University professor emeritus James McPherson and Brandeis University professor David Hackett Fisher. This compromise requires the Institute to preserve 14 out of the land’s 21 total acres but allows the Institute to develop the other seven. In addition, the IAS will add informational signs to the site for those who want to understand the Battle of Princeton.

In 1970, 200 acres of adjacent land were preserved as the Princeton Battlefield State Park. In 2008, the National Park Service named the Princeton Battlefield on its list of the top 29 battlefields from the Revolutionary War endangered by development.

“This plan not only enables us to maintain the essential residential character of our community of scholars, but it will also enhance the Princeton Battlefield Park, which the Institute helped to create and expand,” a press release from the Institute said.

Institute Director Peter Goddard expressed his enthusiasm for the approval but noted that the decision came as no surprise because their proposal “was fully compliant with all the regulations.”

“No real errors have been pointed out, so we were expecting that we would get approval from the planning board,” he added.

Bob Durkee ’69, University vice president and secretary, also expressed his support for the Institute.

“We were supportive of the Institute and pleased that it received approval to proceed with its plans,” he said in an email.

Jerry Hurwitz, The Princeton Battlefield Association president, said that the planning board had received bad advice from the advisory staff members.

“To make an independent decision would be rejecting the advice they were given by [the planning board’s] staff,” he said. “Even if [the advisors] are totally wrong, you can safely follow their recommendations. That covers them from liability.”

Because of the planning board’s decision, Hurwitz said he will now take the case to the courts.

“I think the case is good enough to go in front of a court with lawyers that know how to interpret agreements and ordinances,” he said.

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The Princeton Battlefield Society sponsored a report in 2009 that concluded the main events of the Battle of Princeton had occurred on the land the Institute seeks to develop. Even though the IAS will preserve 14 acres of undeveloped land, Hurwitz said he is not satisfied with the compromise.

“I don’t think of it as a compromise at all. The Institute gets to do what it wants. What they are giving up is so miniscule as to be virtually one-sided,” he said.

He added that most of the land the Institute has agreed to leave undeveloped consists of wetlands that would have to be preserved anyway.

“Their chances of building in that land is slim to none,” Hurwitz said. He also accused the Institute of not caring about historical significance.

“The historic significance of the particular site does not matter to them at all,” he said. “It matters to us.”

Goddard, however, dismissed the Battlefield Society’s claims. He said that the Society’s opposition had cost the Institute and the town a lot of money that had ultimately been wasted.

“They have raised a number of points, none of them of any substance — in essence irrelevant,” he said.

He noted that the Battle of Princeton took place on the Institute’s current site all the way up to Nassau Hall and that not everything can be preserved.

“There would be nothing between the Institute and Nassau Hall. Princeton would not exist,” he said. “I don’t think people fighting [the Battle of Princeton] or any other battle were doing so in order to stop the development of the community in which they lived,” Goddard added.

Hurwitz, however, said he is not giving up. “We are going to fight this ... The approval is not at all final,” he said. “The process will take years; let’s face it.”

But for Goddard the timeline is much tighter.

“Plans have to be completed,” he said. “It will be some months before the building can begin.”