Here is the photo of The Kensington Assisted Living Facility in Westchester.
Village Council Meeting Wednesday on Redevelopment Zone
*** Important Information about Redevelopment Zone ***
Ridgewood NJ, TOMORROW, Wednesday, March 25th, at the end of the Village Council Meeting, there will be a CLOSED Village Council Session to address “Contract Negotiations for the North Walnut Street Redevelopment Zone.”
The Village Council is moving forward with closed-door discussions to evaluate two proposals for the Redevelopment Zone. We recommend that you attend this Village Council meeting (or watch the televised feed) if you have questions about the Redevelopment Zone.
One proposal is for an assisted living facility that would feature commercial space on the ground floor and five floors of residential space. The 5-story building would include a parking garage with 135 parking spaces set aside for public parking, and is expected to generate 18,000 visits per year by the residents’ family and friends. The second proposal would feature 13 duplex apartments in the luxury price range and a massive parking garage that would accommodate 230 standard parking spaces, 118 set aside for residential and retail. (During his presentation, the developer said the parking garage could theoretically accommodate 627 cars with a semi-automatic parking system where cars are stored on pallets and are stacked to save space.) Both proposals would be built to the maximum allowable height of 60 feet.
Most likely, the Village Council will choose one of these two developers to build at the site without engaging residents and without undertaking a Comprehensive Master Plan Review. The American Planning Association guidelines for the state of NJ encourage local government and redevelopers to increase their levels of outreach and engagement efforts as a way to ensure public involvement throughout any redevelopment planning process.
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In response to many of you who have asked about CBR’s position with respect to the Redevelopment Zone, we have quickly prepared some thoughts below, but admit that these are only preliminary thoughts…… We encourage anyone who feels that such an important decision requires more public input and more review, to attend the meeting in Village Hall at 7:30 pm on Wednesday night.
Insights from CBR: Attached is a picture of an Assisted Living facility in Westchester, NY owned by Kensington, the same developer whose proposal is currently in front of the Village Council. The dimensions of this building are actually smaller than what is being proposed for Ridgewood. If three of our five council members favor the Kensington proposal, a similar facility could easily be erected in downtown Ridgewood next year! The Ridgewood building would be 60 feet tall and would have a 5 or 6 story parking garage in the rear. Please look at this picture and notice the garage in the background. The garage would sit on N. Walnut Street. The other proposal is from Langan Development and would include retail space along Franklin Avenue on the first floor of an L-shaped residential building, with a significant parking structure also accessed from N. Walnut Street. The density of the development, which includes 3-bedroom / 2.5-bathroom duplex units, is 12-units per acre.
At CBR, we have always been concerned with development that is out of scale with the surroundings. The sheer size and scale of these developments is even larger than any of the high density developments that have been proposed so far. We are not sure why our Village Council would even entertain building something that is so mega-sized in downtown Ridgewood!
Redevelopment should occur with ample public input. We feel as if our Village Council has not encouraged public input and is moving along very quickly. In fact, are you even aware of the size of these proposals, or that the Village of Ridgewood owns this very valuable piece of real estate in our CBD? Most residents are not. Usually, when a municipality is undertaking a massive redevelopment, they are very excited and community support is strong. We feel as if the community has been left in the dark. Even residents on Walnut Street are unaware of the proposals.
To be clear, this is not a discussion about assisted living or housing. This is a discussion about developing within the character of our town. We are wary of moving forward and building a 60-foot high building in the center of our town without a clear vision for the future. Once again, we have sophisticated developers on the scene ready to “save the day” while our town officials have not done adequate due diligence. This will most certainly pave the way for builders in the future to argue their case for sympathetic zoning benefits. Why is there a big rush / push to urbanize our downtown? And why have the residents been kept out of the planning process? This is a serious issue. Other towns value public input, while Ridgewood seems to have a disdain for its residents and their input.
By way of background, years ago the Hillman family owned the Walnut Street parking lot and our village government took it away from them on the principle of eminent domain, to build a parking garage. Sadly, for years, our village never dealt with funding in order to construct a parking garage. Municipalities all over Northern NJ have addressed their parking problems, issued referendums, bonded out the construction of their own garages and moved forward with viable parking plans.
Both proposals will give Ridgewood a mere 100-135 additional public parking spaces, in return for approval to build on a prime piece of village-owned property that sits in the center of our downtown. 100 plus parking spots? Our parking deficit is estimated to be 1,000 parking spots or greater. The Kensington facility will amount to 98 housing units on little more than an acre. While we like assisted living and suspect that our Village Council is hoping to bring in much needed tax revenue from this business, we have not seen or know of any financial studies that prove this is the best choice for this property. We are also not sure an assisted living facility belongs smack in the the center of downtown. The promise of an additional 100 parking spots is questionable, as these spots could easily be filled by visitors, volunteers, and members of local groups that cater to the assisted living residents. We believe this business will add to our Village’s parking woes rather than solve an age old problem.
Why not build a two or three story parking deck on this property? The property was acquired by the Village for the purpose of parking! CBR has raised the idea of funding and building a parking deck but feel as if it has fallen on deaf ears. For some reason, a few Village Council members are suggesting that residents will not support funding a 2 or 3 story parking deck at this location. Why is the Council so sure that residents won’t support a parking deck on this lot — when we haven’t even been included in the discussions? And on the flip side, why is the Council so sure that the residents of this town will support a 6-story building when there is nothing in the CBD that is currently 6 stories tall? A parking deck with 300 or more spots, dedicated to employees and customers, will increase sales in all of our shops and businesses downtown. (This could, in turn, increase overall tax revenue).
How does all of this fit into Ridgewood’s plan for the future? We wish we could answer that question! Unfortunately, there is currently no plan for the future of Ridgewood. There are separate discussions taking place behind closed doors all over town and no one, except the residents, seem to understand the importance of having a long-term vision for the future of this town. We think we are in the midst of a very sad time in our town right now. Instead of feeling positive about our future, we feel very uncertain.
Here is a link to an article in the Ridgewood News that discusses both proposals
https://www.northjersey.com/news/two-developers-present-proposals-for-ridgewood-lot-1.1284186
Citizens for a Better Ridgewood
citizensforabetterridgewood@aol.com
