Smears don’t negate problems with tax breaks and high density luxury housing in Princeton
To the Editor:
It’s become standard practice these days to label one’s critics casually as terrorists, antisemites, libtards, white supremacists, and more. Predictably, Councilman Leighton Newlin has smeared opponents of the high-rise luxury Stockton Street project — a wide swath of his own constituents, from all across town — as elite racists out to exclude Blacks and Hispanics from Princeton.
As the councilman well knows, the townsfolk he misrepresents want more low-income units than the plan he backs. The real issues, dating back many years, have to do with building a city-sized luxury megalith in the middle of a quiet historic neighborhood, and the environmental and traffic problems, among many others, that this would cause the entire town. They also have to do with a scheme to award tens of millions of dollars to a politically connected private developer, at the expense of all Princetonians.
Concealing all that, the councilman invents a non-issue and twists the slogan DEFEND HISTORIC PRINCETON, directed against destructive overdevelopers, into a racist battle cry. His blatantly false and purposefully inflammatory accusations discredit him and his office. The silence of his fellow council members in the wake of his scurrilous attack on their own constituents is deafening.
In trying to dupe a well-intentioned public, Councilman Newlin proves easily duped himself. Profit-hungry developers, compelled by law to provide a minimum of affordable units, routinely silence criticism by posing as champions of social justice. Credulous local officials then hawk their luxury projects as heroic.
My late relative, Chief Justice Robert N. Wilentz, crafted the 1983 decision that forced New Jersey developers to expand affordable housing. Betraying his intentions and unleashing private high-rise luxury development is beyond cynical.
Defending this latest betrayal, Councilman Newlin plays the race card to support a development that will line the pockets of local players, lauding a scheme that, with its 4:1 ratio of luxury to affordable, will replicate, not reduce, Princeton’s glaring economic and racial inequities.
The councilman claims the project is for “working people who contribute to the life and labor of this town.” Projected market rate rentals, including parking and an unspecified “amenity,” range from $45,192 to $62,664 annually. Try living there on a schoolteacher’s salary in the Princeton public system, let alone the much lower salaries of the other workers in our schools.
Councilman Newlin scorns urgent townwide issues — matters we elected him to address — as racist subterfuges. How, then, will he, a registered real-estate agent, explain to constituents his vote for a sweetheart $40 million PILOT to develop some of the choicest property imaginable — at direct cost to all Princetonians, Black, Hispanic, and white, well-off and working-class?
How will he explain voting to worsen Princeton’s out-of-control traffic mess by adding hundreds of cars right next to Route 206? What about threatened widespread environmental damage by a super-dense project with a massive underground garage?
How, finally, will he and any other council members explain their voting to inflict these harms while awarding a windfall to a private developer who has contributed financially to their own election campaigns? Cui bono?
Councilman Newlin accuses dissenters of demeaning the history of Blacks and working-class immigrants while privileging colonial and early national (read rich white) history. He obviously has not read the writings of the historian critics of the project.
Historic Princeton is the entire town, Jackson-Witherspoon as well as the Western section, The Barracks as well as Dorothea’s House. An injury to one is an injury to all, one reason you’re seeing DEFEND HISTORIC PRINCETON signs far and wide. It’s called community. Councilman Newlin, the overdevelopers’ friend, prefers slander.
Sincerely yours,
Sean Wilentz
Edgehill Street
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Well said – we need new voices on Council desperately who aren’t in bed with developers (blatantly or otherwise)
Well said.
My admiration to Sean Wilentz for hitting the nail on the head. Councilman Newlin and the developer seem to be all too well aligned. The issues raised by Princeton residents are credible and deserve true consideration. Smearing or ignoring those who raise objections to the development is unacceptable and all Princeton Council-members should take a step back and reassess this ill-conceived plan.
Thank you for sticking to the concerns and undiscovered facts surrounding this issue.
Agree. Why are they allowing this? We moved out of Maplewood, NJ because of this. Our taxes were exorbitant, while enormous apartment complexes were shoehorned into our neighborhoods, creating more foot traffic, street traffic, and more need for additional schools. To give 30 year tax abatements to these developers while the town people were expected to accept an increase in our property taxes pushed many of us out of the town. I would hate to see this in Historic Princeton. Why are they so gung ho? I am sure the council members and the zoning boards are not creating these monsters out of some sort of altruism for low income families. If that were the case, there would be more low income units in the buildings. I can only speculate as to their own interest.
You can call it “smears” but this “not in my backyard” attitude directly contributes to the housing crisis we are in the midst of. Further: it does hurt black, Hispanic and poor residents the hardest that’s the reality. Princetonians who oppose new housing should at least be honest about their intentions: You are primarily concerned with the value of your home not the “town’s character”. Meanwhile the rest of us can barely afford a starter home because of your bad behavior. For shame!
I am 100% for more affordable housing in Princeton, and would support a plan that is focussed on providing affordable housing. However, the growth plan provides very little low-income housing, and certainly not enough to justify selling Princeton off to developers who will benefit enormously from the high rents charged on 80% of the units, and who will not even have to pay taxes on those considerable profits. Ironically, the construction of this “affordable” housing will make Princeton less affordable for current residents, who will have to pay more taxes to provide for the additional children in tax-exempt properties.