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DECEMBER 27, 2018 FREE
Top North runner is MIT bound
Judge OKs affordable housing settlement
By Justin Feil Vedang Lad was cut from the West Windsor-Plainsboro High North swim team as a freshman. The rest is history. Except defining what the High School North senior has done over the last three years as “the rest” isn’t nearly credit enough for the runner, captain, scholar, artist and EMT. “He’s a renaissance man,” said North cross country and track coach Brian Gould. “He’s good at everything.” Lad has become one of the best runners in the state while juggling a challenging academic load and working parttime with the Plainsboro Rescue Squad, sometimes even volunteering all through the night before going to school and practice in the morning. “Two or three times when you’re actually doing CPR on a person, it’s pretty scary,” Lad said. “The practice dummies don’t do justice to what it feels like to actually press into someone. It’s scary, but it’s cool to know if you were on your own somewhere you know how to do it.” In Lad’s spare time he reads books about physics, and he finds time to work on drawings or paint a couple times per week. He has been accepted and will matriculate and run at Massachusetts Institute of Technology next year, his top choice and something of a reward for excelling within his See LAD, Page 6
By Bill sanserVino
bsanservino@communitynews.org
Mudassir Hussain, Iftikhar Hyder, West Windsor Mayor Hemant Marathe, Muhammad Usman Mustafa and Sajid Syed celebrate the opening of Rahbar Trust’s free librar y at the Princeton Junction train station on Oct. 28, 2018. Hussain, Hyder and Mustafa are all members of Rahbar. Syed is an entrepreneur who is involved in a number of nonprofit organization including Madina Clinic and Welfare Trust and the Muslim Center of Greater Princeton.
Leave a book, take a book Free library at train station meant to encourage book swapping By miCHele alPerin Mudassir Hussain did much of the legwork on creating the new “Take a book, leave a book” project of Rahbar Trust. Housed in a structure with enclosed bookshelves at Princeton Junction train station and inaugurated on Oct. 28, this was the first local project for Rahbar
Trust, which was an originally Pakistani nonprofit. Part of the group’s goal is to “promote harmony among community members and hopefully encourage Book Swapping among individuals,” according to a Rahbar Trust press release. For Hussain, a Pakistani immigrant who came to the United States a decade ago and moved to the West WindsorPlainsboro area in 2012, volunteerism is an important part of his life and encompasses more than his activism with Rahbar. “This is also the reason I’m on the recreation board—I have
to give back to the community. This is my responsibility,” Hussain says. “This community is such a nice community; there are so many people who respect you a lot and are so caring, you really want to give some time for them, particularly when your children are part of this community and educated by this school district,” he says. Looking for a project that would “involve the West Windsor-Plainsboro community” and require them to “take ownership of the project,” Rahbar See LIBRARY, Page 8
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West Windsor’s plan to provide for 1,500 affordable housing credits by 2025 has gotten the stamp of approval from the state Superior Court judge who had oversight of the program. Mayor Hemant Marathe announced on Dec. 3 that Judge Mary Jacobson had ruled in favor of an affordable housing agreement between the Fair Share Housing Center of Cherry Hill and West Windsor Township. In October, the township reached an agreement with FSHC to settle a lawsuit brought by the nonprofit over the amount of affordable housing the township must provide. Council voted to approve the settlement on Oct. 10. Marathe said that the township will have 90 days from Dec. 3 to enact ordinances rezoning properties in order to implement the plan. The judge will then hold a compliance hearing and certify that the township has met its affordable housing obligation through 2025. In March, Jacobson ruled on the FSHC lawsuit, finding that the township is responsible to provide for 1,500 affordable housing credits by 2025. Once the judge certifies agreement, it will settle the FSHC litigation and ensure that the township, the FSHC or any other entity cannot challenge the 1,500 number. Once approved the See AFFORDABLE, Page 10
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