According to the open space section of Plainsboro’s master plan (Chapter 6), the 2008 township open space inventory was 3,610.58 acres, or more than half of the township’s land area and nearly half of the township’s 7,800 total acres.
According to director of planning and zoning Les Varga, the inventory has not increased substantially since then because there are not many acquirable properties available. “We are pretty much at our limit in terms of sizeable acquisitions,” Vargas says. “There aren’t any pieces out there that we have our eye on, only a couple here and there.”
Public parks and public facilities, including public schools, make up the majority of the open space inventory. The 530-acre Plainsboro Preserve is the most prominent preserved space. Private open space, often adjacent to housing developments, accounts for around 1,000 acres.
Also part of the inventory is more than 700 acres of preserved farm land, clustered in the south of Plainsboro near Cranbury and West Windsor. The southern section has been designated a farmland preservation zone, and the township has secured county funding as well as partnered with the Middlesex County Agriculture Development Board. Another preservation technique was the use of farmland zoning to secure preservation in exchange for clustered development.
“You increase the density on one portion of the property and allow a portion to remain in its natural state,” Varga says. “The developer gets what they want, and the township gets additional open space.”
The last substantial open space acquisition was the purchase of the 84-acre Bulk family farm. Although Varga said he did not have information on how many acres in Plainsboro are potentially developable, the township does not have a large tract that can sustain a large residential developement.
