AvalonBay has a Lot of Trouble with Trash Management

To the Editor:

AvalonBay has a lot of trouble with trash management. Their Plan B involves a wholly disruptive misuse of the service drive from Franklin Avenue to the trash pickup area at the northeast corner of the large building. Because this driveway has no turn-around area, the trash trucks will be required to back up in order to
get out—and the law requires them to use loud claxon-like warning beepers.
Since the grade of the driveway is pretty steep, trucks will have to rev the
diesel engines, no matter which way they’re going. Great harmonies for the
tenants!—and residents on Harris Road. Who knows when the early morning trash
pickup will be scheduled? Don’t even mention stench from spillage.

With the development’s huge population, AvalonBay may need to schedule trash pickups more than twice times a week. At the June 5^th SPRAB meeting, Mr. Vogel (AvalonBay’s Vice-President for Development) declined to answer the question, How much volume in trash 280 units would produce?---and replied instead that they would manage trash by frequency of pickup. From the point of view of public health, that’s great—but from the perspective of public nuisance, it’s terrible. Trash must be picked up for a roughly 560 people, with approximately 320 people in the courtyard building alone.

Why couldn’t Mr. Vogel have instructed AvalonBay architects to modify the service  drive to include a turn-around for service vehicles?—or scuttle the service drive for an altogether better design?

 Everyone should know that 12 out of 19 apartments on the bottom two floors facing the service drive will be affordable housing units (see Site Plan, sheets A-101 and A-102). The 24+ tenants subjected to noise and stench from the trucks and their beepers will be the people in our society who have fewest rights, least power.

Where is the social justice here? SPRAB and the Planning Board must ensure that AvalonBay revises its plans to include a turn-around to avoid the unnecessary
backwards-beeping. Otherwise, they will consciously treat the “affordable
housing” tenants unjustly. Responsibility and blame for any failure to devise
an appropriate route for trash trucks must be shared.

 AvalonBay has a poor record of arranging trash removal; they need help from Princeton’s professionals. Their Plan A involved an illegal use of the garage for trash dumpsters; it also required the huge dumpsters (filled) to be hauled up a slope (manually?). Many people have seen photos of AvalonBay’s horrendous trash situation in their developments in Lawrenceville and West Windsor (go to
“facebook.com/PrincetonCitizensFor” and search [ctrl F] for “trash”—you don’t
need a Facebook account).

How many botches in design fromAvalonBay will this town tolerate? When will our municipal representatives say, Enough! we’ve had enough and go (back) to court to defend, and win, on the basis of Borough Code 17A-193-B. The fact that AvalonBay produced Plan B (which adheres to some requirements of 17A-193B) shows that they understood the Code all along---and chose not to comply.

Marco Gottardis

Harris Road