Clock is Ticking on High Density Housing for the Central Business District in Ridgewood

Ridgewood NJ, As you may or may not know, on September 30th the village council will be continuing the 2 night hearing and voting on the 5 ordinances regarding the high density housing. These ordinances would increase the density allowed from 12 units per acre (current) to 35 units per acre (UPA) in our downtown. Here’s a comparison as to what some other towns in our area allow: Fort Lee 50 UPA, Teaneck 28 UPA, Englewood 12 UPA, Hackensack 22 UPA. If passed, Fort Lee would be the only town in our area, similar in population, with a greater density per acre. I do believe the majority of the town is accepting of development, but on a smaller scale. Maybe 25 units per acre? Do we really want to be built up more than Teaneck? I certainly don’t want to be anywhere near Fort Lee’s density.

The planning board spent approximately 3 years in discussions and 1 1/2 years in a public hearing before voting. The village council had a small portion of their Sept 16 meeting devoted to this and now the council will be coming to the sept 30th meeting with their written statements prepared on how they are voting and why. The Ridgewood News had an editorial last week about “what’s the hurry?”. I have to agree with them. While I don’t want this to drag out, I do want the council to do their due diligence and get all of the facts before they vote. During the Valley hearings at the council level, the council brought in the traffic expert, planner, geotechnical engineer, etc and each council member asked questions of these experts and based their vote on what was discussed at council.

It appears that the majority of the council does not want to bring in any experts. They are ready to vote without asking any questions of any experts as to how this will effect Ridgewood. At the planning board level, a concern about the increase this would bring to our taxes was brought up several times by residents. The discussion was always shot down, because “it is not in the purview of the planning board to consider finances.” In fact, the village planner stated, “residential housing almost always increases taxes, we should not be doing this if we think taxes will go down, but there are other benefits to residential housing.” The council has a much broader scope of items they can discuss, finances being one of them. You may remember that Tom Riche voted yes to the Valley amendment at the PB level, but no to it at the council level. That is because the council is able to look at a broader range of issues. Finances should definitely be discussed.

I would like to see the council bring in several experts in addition to a financial expert. Water must be discussed. I know this year is an exception with the lack of rain, but we have mandatory water restrictions every year. Can you imagine an additional few hundred apartments to supply? I can’t.

Schools must be discussed. The planning board did not have a member of the BOE at their public hearings. The council needs to ask Dr Fishbein to appear at the council hearing to answer questions.

The traffic expert, the engineer, the planner, etc should all be questioned. I do hear the planner will be there, but that’s it.

I don’t know how anyone could possible vote on something so monumental without questioning all of these experts to see what the impacts will be for Ridgewood.

I urge you to e-mail our council and ask them to have these experts at the hearing, get the facts first hand, and then vote.

These people are our elected officials, and we have a right to make sure they have done their due diligence before they vote.

Whether you are for or against the increase to 35 units per acre, I think we can all agree that each council member needs to be able to ask questions of the experts to help them in their decision making process.

Below are the e-mails of all the council members. Please send them an e-mail today and forward this to friends. Thanks