Land use ordinance under revision in Ridgewood
Tuesday January 29, 2013, 10:00 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
The Ridgewood Council will consider a new version of a controversial ordinance intended to clarify and define specific ways that businesses, houses of worship, schools and public utilities, among other entities, use and improve their properties.
According to Village Planner Blais Brancheau, a revision to the Village Code’s Land Use and Development chapter is needed, in part, to conform to the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The Ridgewood Planning Board has been working on an amendment for several months and last fall passed a draft ordinance to the Village Council.
The subsequent public hearing on that ordinance drew many concerns from residents, and the council requested that the Planning Board rework the language and several guidelines. The Village Council ultimately defeated the first ordinance in December before introducing a second version on Jan. 16.
The most recent version already has the full recommendation of the Planning Board, according to Village Manager Ken Gabbert.
At previous Village Council and Planning Board meetings, several residents spoke about the “near and dear” issues that impacted residents’ quality of life. Without appropriate buffers between his South Hillside Place residence and an adjacent busy church, Michael Lenhard claimed that he could no longer sleep with the windows open because of the noise emanating from late-night activities at the house of worship.
Earlier this month, Brancheau highlighted some of the clarifications and substantive changes that were made during the Planning Board’s second crack at the ordinance. The municipal planner primarily focused on buffers, specifically how they are used between residential and non-residential zoned properties.
“The main things are that the buffer regulations were changed to provide enhanced buffers in certain cases on more large-scale projects,” Brancheau said.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/188836821_Land_use_ordinance_under_revision_in_Ridgewood.html
