On January 30 council approved a resolution for a lease agreement between the township and the West Windsor Parking Authority for the New South Lot parking lot, which will bring the Princeton Junction train station 650 new parking spaces for West Windsor residents to use at the old Alexander Road compost site.
The stage is now set for council to adopt an ordinance to guarantee bonds for the acquisition of the site and subsequent construction, as well as refund prior parking authority bonds. A public hearing on the ordinance will be held at the next council meeting, Monday, February 13.
Business Administrator Robert Hary said that there will be “$3.5 million in hard costs and $1 million in soft costs.” He said the parking authority will also consolidate just under $500,000 of existing debt, and the total amount that the parking authority will be raising is $5.4 million.
Hary presented the details of the West Windsor Parking Authority’s 50-year lease with the township. West Windsor will receive $50,000 per year for the first 10 years plus 10 percent of yearly net revenue for all WWPA parking facilities.
Councilman Bryan Maher asked whether the parking authority was a profit-seeking entity and why rates at the Wallace Road lot have gone up roughly 75 percent in the last three years. Hary stated that the parking authority, as a government entity, could not be profit-seeking.
Andrew Lupo, chairman of the West Windsor Parking Authority, offered Maher further explanation of West Windsor’s parking costs. “We try to provide the most economical, cheapest parking we can for West Windsor residents. We know we are much below the market, what NJ Transit charges and what Hamilton and other municipalities charge,” Lupo said.
Maher’s main concern is that long-time West Windsor residents would be subsidizing the parking for 650 residents who haven’t waited many years to park at the train station.
“You would basically be charging a certain amount of people an extra amount of money to benefit another group of people. It doesn’t seem fundamentally fair when, according to my math and your bonding, it’s really not going to be too expensive to park at the New South Lot to begin with,” Maher said.
The township attorney said that part of the problem with financing the New South Lot is the cost of cleaning up the municipal dump.
“The costs for that are quite high and we have to offset them. Because it is a municipal dump the whole township has to take on some financial responsibility,” Herbert said.
Lupo said that as a 25-year commuter he understands that previous taxpayers paved the way for him and others to park at the station.
“We’re looking at it from the residents’ point of view, and I’m happy that the commuters, the users of the facility, are actually cleaning up the compost site with up to $500,000 that they’re going to fund. I’m happy that they’re going to pay the $25,000 that is estimated for annual DEP testing so that I as a resident don’t have to pay that,” Lupo said.
He then offered another perspective.
“But as a commuter I do recognize that this is one lot. Whether it’s Wallace or Vaughn, it’s the West Windsor lot and I still believe the value we are providing is much greater than you can get with NJ Transit,” Lupo said.
The full commuter parking situation has been considered as the parking authority closely tracks other plans for the station. Lupo said New Jersey Transit still has plans to build a parking garage on its lot.
“A few years ago they put an RFP out to try to modify their spaces across the state, knowing that Princeton Junction was the crown jewel of the system. They thought a big corporate entity could come in, but currently there’s a $100 million shortfall in their budget. This project idea has been going on forever and we don’t know if it will actually come to life,” he said.
