Witherspoon-Jackson is Princeton’s first historic district in nearly 20 years. So what will the new historic preservation ordinance do and what won’t it do?
The neighborhood’s zoning “bulk” regulations, which limits what can be built, remain unchanged. The most significant changes are additional steps to the approval process for those seeking to tear down and build anew. Demolition permit applications are subject to review by the Historic Preservation Office and require Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) approval at a public meeting.
“Meaningful landmarks were disappearing,” says HPC chair Julie Capozzoli, an Evergreen Circle resident and licensed architect who has previously served as assistant director of facilities at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and is also a member of the Planning Board. “Historic preservation is the only tool to stop and review a demolition. There’s no other zoning that will stop someone from demolishing a building. There have been occasional demolitions in historic districts, but in a historic district that is not allowed without review and approval from the commission.”
For example, Capozzoli says a property owner in the Drumthwacket historic district demolished an outbuilding without permission. The homeowner was taken to court and had to rebuild the section they had torn down.
New house plans will also be reviewed by the Historic Preservation Office, in addition to the engineering and zoning offices, and will now also require HPC approval.
The ordinance is not meant to ban new houses in the historic district, nor “to discourage contemporary architectural expression or to encourage new construction that emulates existing buildings of historic or architectural interest or of a certain period or architectural style,” the ordinance states. But it does seek “to preserve the integrity and authenticity of the historic preservation districts and to insure the compatibility of new structures.”
Princeton’s ordinance lists 14 visual compatibility criteria for new construction.
For instance, one of the criteria states the size and “mass of a structure in relation to open spaces, and the windows, door openings, porches, and balconies” need to be visually compatible with related structures in the district.
Among the other criteria that should be “visually compatible” in their relationship to nearby structures to which a proposed structure is visually related:
The width of windows to the height of windows.Solids to voids in the front facade of a structure.Open space between the new structure and adjoining structures.Entrance and porch projections.Materials, texture, and color of the facade and roof. The ordinance states that “such materials, texture, and color shall act as a backdrop to and not intrude visually upon the structures within the district to which the structure is related.”
According to Capozzoli, the historic preservation guidelines are well established. More than a year prior to consolidation, Capozzoli, then on the township HPC, worked on a subcommittee with borough counterparts to “harmonize” the historic preservation ordinance to be passed by the consolidated municipality.
However, if the new housing plan requests zoning variances, the HPC is relegated to an advisory role and final jurisdiction falls to the Zoning Board.
Historic Preservation Officer Elizabeth Kim emphasizes that ordinary maintenance, such as replacing a window, roof, or door, does not require the filing of an application. “It’s mostly larger changes, if they want to move the door, add a window, an addition, or demolishing and adding a new building,” Kim said. “If it’s something in the back that’s small, that’s one floor, that’s not visible, then we’re not going to review it.”
Other members of the volunteer Historic Preservation Commission, which meets monthly, include Catherine Kurtz Gowen, Robert von Zumbusch, David Schure, Elric Endersby, Cecelia Tazelaar, and Roger Shatzkin, and alternates Shirley Satterfield and Tom White.
