Following its approval of a Master Plan amendment, the Plainsboro Planning Board has reviewed two ordinances that would rezone the St. Joseph’s Seminary property to allow for educational and cultural arts uses on site as well as for a cemetery zone.
The Planning Board conducted a “courtesy review” of the ordinance on September 20, before recommending to send it to the Township Committee, which will review the ordinance on Wednesday, October 13.
In August, the board adopted the Master Plan amendment, which designated the zone as an educational and cultural arts area. The ordinances before the board on September 20 enact that amendment.
“What the master plan amendment does is it puts out there for everyone to review the intent for that particular area,” explained Les Varga, the township’s director of planning and zoning. “With its approval, you need a set of implementing regulations, like you do everywhere else.”
That’s where the ordinances come in. “It’s really two ordinances — one for the educational and cultural arts zone and one for the cemetery,” he said. The first ordinance preserves the grassy area in front of the stone buildings, known as the “great lawn” to many. The ordinance provides a generous setback from the right-of-way on Mapleton Road to the buildings. “That’s the front yard setback, so that area is preserved,” explained Varga. “That doesn’t mean that someone can’t come in the future and ask for a variance to build. But at least that’s what the objective is: to preserve that front area.”
The buildings on site will be zoned for educational and arts type uses, including for schools, performance areas, practice areas, dormitories, eating space, and other uses associated with a school. In the area behind the buildings, there is a smaller setback that would allow for possible building expansions for dormitory space or other space. “It puts a building envelope that allows for that expansion,” Varga said.
A separate ordinance creates a zone for cemetery uses that allow things like headstones, mausoleums, and burial places for human remains. Officials created a separate zone because a state cemetery board governs the use of cemeteries, and one of the major requirements is that a plan for the cemetery’s ultimate use and buildout of the cemetery area be approved by the Township Committee.
The Planning Board does not have the ability to approve ordinances, but can review them and recommend the ordinances to the Township Committee.
“Zoning ordinances can only be approved by the Township Committee,” said Varga. “Because they went through the time and effort to approve the Master Plan amendment, we asked them to review it and recommend it be sent to the Township Committee.” The seminary will continue to be owned by the Eastern Province of the Congregation of St. Vincent de Paul — known as the Vincentians.
The seminary is zoned in the OB-1 zone, which permits office and business uses on the site, which would not preserve the site, as officials hope to do, because it permits office and business uses to come into the property, whether to use the buildings or use other pieces of the property, or actually tear the buildings down.
The idea is to preserve the buildings and the grounds, and officials said the best way to do so was to bring back the use of the property as it was once envisioned, which was for educational purposes.
St. Joseph’s was built in 1914, when it served as a high school and college seminary for the Vincentians. New buildings were added in 1960, and part of the seminary became the home of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood community. After the Missionary Sisters, who provided domestic service for the seminary, retired in 1982, the building was used occasionally to accommodate guests for retreats and meetings.
Work began in 1988 to renovate the facility into a modern retreat center. The seminary’s Gothic chapel was also restored and was opened in 1989. By 1992, the seminary graduated its last class of 10 teenage boys after 78 years, citing declining numbers of young men interested in becoming priests.
Up until that point, the seminary had served as a boarding high school for young men contemplating the priesthood.
The prospects of restoring educational uses at this particular site has already been contemplated. It attracted attention this summer when the controversial Princeton International Academy Charter School tried to obtain a variance to operate at the seminary — a necessary step in the state approval process that was halted when a discrepancy in notice requirements was found by the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district and recognized by the Zoning Board.
However, officials say that the Master Plan amendment and ordinances apparently have nothing to do with PIACS. Rather, it is indicative of the seminary’s goals and plans for the site, as well as officials’ desire to preserve the site and its historical architecture, officials said.
In addition to the controversial Princeton International Academy Charter School, the 44-acre site has reportedly attracted interest from a variety of area institutions, including the notable Princeton-based American Boychoir, which is exploring the possibility of relocating to the site.
A confluence of events shut down PIACS officials’ efforts to open next month. The last and final blow this year was PIACs’ failure to obtain an extension from the state to get zoning approval from Plainsboro Township to move into St. Joseph’s Seminary.
A July 19 hearing on PIACS’ application for a variance to occupy the seminary was canceled at the last minute, upon request of the charter school itself, as a result of the Department of Education’s denial of an extension of a July 15 deadline to obtain a certificate of occupancy (CO) for the seminary. PIACS missed the original deadline when the originally scheduled Zoning Board hearing was postponed due to a technicality.
The CO was the last step in the final approval for the charter school to open in September. However, the DOE did give the charter school an entire year to find a facility and obtain a CO — without having to repeat the process of re-applying for its charter at the state level. PIACS officials hope to open in September, 2011.
The lease agreement that PIACS had with St. Joseph’s Seminary was contingent upon the school receiving the official charter from the DOE.
