Plainsboro Township, New Jersey

is protected open space and cannot be developed. A thousand acres of land sold off by farmers has become a wildlife sanctuary called the Plainsboro Preserve that features an environmental education center and trails. Les Varga, Plainsboro’s Director of Planning and Zoning elaborates. “Collectively, the Township employed different tools such as the transfer of development rights. For example, if someone wants to develop ten homes on ten acres, but instead if you put those ten homes on five acres, and preserve the rest as open space, you cluster the homes near roads and other infrastructure and all of those costs come down precipitously. Then you have the benefit of the open space that allows grass and plants to grow and animals to flourish, and storm water to actually percolate back into the ground and produce fresh drinking water. If you do that enough times, six of the twelve square miles of Plainsboro is preserved in various ways - a public park, preserved land and private open space. We also relied on organizations to set aside part of pictured Plainsboro Library pictured Wicoff House