Reader calls those skeptical of Village Development “ostrich friends”
My dear ostrich friends, keep your heads in the sand, keep Ridgewood the same, keep the unsightly empty car dealerships with landscaping trucks parked there on the weekend. How about opening our eyes to creating a village where people who want to be in Ridgewood but are just starting out or those of us empty-nesters can move when the house feels too big?
How about creating a vibrancy in town that might attack more great restaurants and interesting shops? How about saying lets think about development as a positive and while it is all a bit much to do it all at once, a plan for growth that stages these developments over the next 10 years based on demand would be sensible. The intense black or white view of every issue is getting tiresome and smells of ignorance not understanding and forward thinking.
Amen. The status quo is failing. There are no stores downtown. No parking on the weekends. You see more walkers and canes than strollers around town. The status quo cannot be sustained.
Just because someone is going to make money building a development doesn’t mean its a bad thing. Controlled development and growth could help to reinvigorate Ridgewood so that there is a vibrant downtown, energized citizens to run organizations and housing options that reflect the realities of demographic changes.
We should work to make it the best it can be not just oppose every development and change.
“You see more walkers and canes than strollers around town.”
Just because you wrote it on the internets doesn’t mean it’s true. There are tons of strollers downtown.
I am typically pro development as long as it’s well thought out. So let’s think about a parking garage.
Parking rates will need to economically sustain the cost of building the garage, so they will be higher than the meter rates around town. That will create an imbalance, and people will park in the garage only as a last resort. People who live in Ridgewood (and pay for all this) will also face the squeeze (unless Ridgewood pulls a Hoboken and blocks out street parking areas for residents only).
Fast forward: some bright bulb with a newly minted MBA interns in Village Hall, and realizes that the Village could capitalize on the imbalance between street parking prices and garage parking prices. They commission a “study”, a red herring really, but someone’s friend could use the money so why not. The “study” will reveal the obvious: The Village can raise the price of on-street parking to be more in line with the garage prices because, you guessed it, fuck you, that’s why.
If that’s what you want, then stick your head back in the sand.
No problem with a development, or even two. But, four??? C’mon who do you think is going to buy all those units? Young professionals? No way. The majority of units will be purchased by professional real estate investors and the units will be on the market as rentals so fast the BOE won’t have a clue where all the new students came from.
Looks like the Deputy Mayor is a good writer. His analogy of ostriches is great. Unfortunately, he is all wrong
Above all we should give priority to any developers who are giving big gifts to the Village
And those new renters will have the same vote as home owners in Ridgewood. Those people will not have Ridgewood’s long term interests in mind. Why would any home owners want to skew the electorate in Ridgewood to favor the short term interest of renters? IT WILL IMPACT YOUR HOME VALUES IN THE LONG RUN. Don’t believe the “If you like your town you can keep your town” folks. They are lying to you. If those people get their way (and if Valley Hospital) gets its way, Ridgewood as we know it will be a thing of the past and there is no “administrative fix” that will save us from that fate if we let it happen.
Yeah I didn’t even think of the impact this would have on elections. Like Hoboken back in the day, the Mayor would authorize the HHA to host BBQs in the projects on Jackson street a couple weeks before election day.
What’s the old saying, voting themselves bread and games ad infinitum?
And just who do you think the supposed young “people just starting out” and the “empty nesters” will vote for? Will they vote for candidates that want to keep taxes low? Will they vote for people who want to maintain the character of our community? Will they vote for people who want to make sure that property values remain high? Will they vote for people who want our schools to be the best (not merely good enough for now)? Now you know why our Mayor and his two underlings want to over develop Ridgewood and bring in the renters. Permanent majority for them.
We are talking about a total of 200-300 voters being added. If they all showed up it _might_ be a factor in some races.
Truthfully, we should only be so lucky as to attract 300 people who care enough about the village to show up to vote. We can’t even get the people who own property in town to show up to vote, much less new renters.
Focus on the real issues of traffic, additional students and tax base. Lets find a real compromise to move things forward instead of this chicken little garbage.
People are being hit by cars a couple of times a month. Someone please explain how greatly increasing density will not worsen traffic downtown and all around. That prospect alone is enough to halt these developments. And there are plenty of other good reasons also.
The original poster here clearly does not understand the difference between development planned and driven by the town and development planned and driven by individual special interests.
Look at Valley – the biggest special interest of them all. They just want to double in size. The have their mole Mrs. Hauck on the Council and make huge donations to the school system so that the BOE won’t oppose their over wrought plans. Ridgewood gets nothing out of Valley’s expansion, yet, mysteriously, we are still considering it.
Look at Mr. Saraceno. He’s a businessman in business to make money. He wants to build the biggest apartment building possible because that’s how he makes the most money. He pays for fundraiser tickets for our Council and doesn’t care how his project works in conjunction with Valley and the other projects because that’s not what he’s in business to do.
Look at Mr Bolger. He doesn’t want to get passed over so he coughs up a huge donation to the town so his project isn’t opposed. He doesn’t care at all about how his plans work in conjunction with Valley’s or Mr. Saraceno’s, nor does he care if his project benefits the town at all. He only makes money if he builds.
See a pattern here? Don’t leap to the conclusion that just because people oppose the various development projects in town that they oppose ANY development. Ridgewood should be driving the development process but instead are being bought and bullied by special interests. Saying that those that oppose you have their heads in the sand is a convenient position to take when you haven’t considered all the facts.
#11 is right on the money. Development is not bad, but any development should be for the good of Ridgewood, not for the good of a developer. And for sure when money is being poured into the pockets of the Village by the developer it is just horrible. When is our council going to wise up and stop making foolish mistakes???????
# 11 the Council know exactly what their doing and they are not making any foolish mistakes. It is the residents of Ridgewood who drank the KOOLAID and voted for them. The residents should have look harder into their back ground before voted for them .
Mrs. Hauck won by 10 votes. More of a voter turnout issue than people drinking koolaid.