The University received the green light last week from local authorities to build new graduate student apartments as part of its efforts to alleviate the current housing shortage.
The University's plan calls for seven structures to be built on a new roadway called Lawrence Drive, which will intersect Alexander Road near Basin Street.
The construction will help alleviate the growing dearth of low-cost housing for graduate students, which became a hot issue last spring during the final meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community.
The buildings will eventually provide 206 new units of housing for roughly 225 graduate students.
Although the University still faces a housing shortage, plans for the new apartments will chip away at what has become a major concern for the Graduate Student Government.
The apartments will allow the University to house roughly 80 percent of the students. It currently houses 70 percent.
"This is an important first step in meeting the demonstrated need for graduate student housing," GSG press secretary Meredith Safran GS said.
The number of graduate students has risen dramatically over the last few years, compelling the University to design new living accommodations, Director of Planning and Development Jon Hlafter '61 said.
Based on early admission data, administrators predicted this spring that the graduate student body would grow by at least three percent this year.
The University received more than 100 applications for graduate student housing that could not be filled, Housing Department Director Tom Miller said.
While all of those students eventually found alternative housing, Miller said the students would have preferred to live in University housing.
At last Thursday's meeting, the Princeton Regional Planning Board voted unanimously in favor of the project.
"This project we moved on a little bit quicker than others," said Lee Solow, the board's planning director.
Solow said the board recognized the need for more graduate student housing.
However, the board expressed concerns over the removal of an estimated 1,200 trees near the Delaware and Raritan Canal to make room for the buildings.
"We did a careful study of the area and decided that the units would go in the area that has the newest or youngest trees," Hlafter said.
The University will work with the board on replanting hundreds of trees on the site, he said.
The board also expressed concern over the heavy traffic on Alexander Road, instructing the University to work toward installing a traffic signal at the intersection of Lawrence Drive, Solow said.
While the University moves forward with construction, it has taken measures to provide temporary housing for graduate students by converting Lockhart Hall from an undergraduate dormitory and adding extra beds to rooms in the Graduate College.
The University has also recently considered developing its West Windsor property, though its distance from campus may be prohibitive, Hlafter said.
Among major universities, Princeton is unique in housing such a high percentage of its graduate students.
Hlafter said only Stanford University houses a comparable percentage, largely because Princeton and Palo Alto have similarly high rents and lack affordable housing.
Leaving students to find housing in town would worsen an already tight housing market for borough and township residents.
If the project proceeds as scheduled, the two five-story buildings will be completed and ready for students at the start of the fall 2003 term, Hlafter said.
Because of the shortage, some graduate students have had to move out of apartments to accommodate new students.
"The housing issue is a total fiasco," Zena Hitz GS said last spring after she lost her Hibben apartment off Faculty Road, where she lived for four years.
While undergraduates improve their housing lottery standing by seniority, graduate students are disadvantaged in the draw by their number of years at the University. Preference is given to younger graduates.
For example, a second-year student would be given priority over a third-year student.
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