Since its beginning in 2000, Princeton Future has relied on community-wide meetings, study groups, and informal interactions with residents to identify and to explore in depth important issues before they end up on the official public agenda. Our sessions often bring together acknowledged experts and ordinary citizens with first hand knowledge of the issue being addressed.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS:
- One of Princeton Future’s first projects in the early 2000s was envisioning and mobilizing community support for a public gathering space on the site of a surface parking lot next to the Public Library. Several years later that became Hinds Plaza.
- In 2009 Princeton Future brought the community together to consider possible changes in several downtown locations. One result was a concept for a “poets’ alley” in the passageway leading off Nassau Street to a parking and loading area behind Starbucks and what was then Landau’s, now Claridge Liquors. In 2017 Dohm Alley was created.
- In February, 2020, Princeton Future invited residents to discuss how municipal-owned land on Franklin Avenue could be developed to accommodate 80 units of affordable housing, part of Princeton’s legal obligation under the state’s Mount Laurel ruling. The participants at that meeting showed a strong preference for an inclusive housing project that would have an equal mix of affordable and market rate units. Princeton Future then convened a series of workshops with Princeton based architects and planners showing how 160 units could be placed on the site. The effort culminated in a joint meeting with the municipality led by Mayor Liz Lempert exploring the possibility of 160 units on the site. A formal redevelopment plan is expected to be announced soon.
Whenever possible Princeton Future strives to record – either in text or through video – the verbatim observations of all participants. The result is an archive that provides an insight into the thoughts and concerns of the town over more than two decades.
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