the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, perhaps a glimpse into Ridgewood’s future . The Village sells out to politically connected developers , and top schools can be rented rather than bought by homeownership in Ridgewood and other top school towns.
“Top schools”? Ridgewood Public Schools are about to plunge over a financial cliff. Union contracts are unsustainable and the administration has become way too dependent on an over taxed community and seems to think that the well will never run dry. Add to that the inevitable influx of renters with school aged children and the whole system will implode. We need to put a tax on developers for every school age child that moves into one of their complexes. After all, they promised us that only 3 kids will be moving in because the apartments are for “empty nesters”. Right.
The only way to preserve property values is to cater to commuters to NYC. We need to make it easy and affordable to get them into and out of the City. As long as NYC salaries can keep pace, we have a chance.
An apartment next to the train tracks used to be for people who were broke. Noise, dirt, commotion, train whistles at inflated prices–really?
there is no end to the goals of positioning children in free nj top public small town schools ,then lazer focus on academic performance tutors etc ; then placement in best colleges that money saved , borrowed or free grants and colledge student aid can buy. The more kids in each apt , then this scales up the value of the opportunities for other towns property taxpayers to pay their way.laughing all the way while taxpayers fork over both in taxes and 50k plus after taxes !! per yr for own college bound young adult students . major issues ahead..
One of the NJ transit conductors told me the State of NJ has created both massive tax incentives and builders are required to provide less parking for units built within close walking distance to trains with the idiotic idea that it will result in less people using cars and more use of public transportation therefore saving us all from global warming and fossil fuel use.
Bill’s comment is probably true. NJ launched the Urban Transit Hub program for large companies. They received tax incentives for moving to an area where major public transportation was available – Panasonic from Secaucus to Newark, Pearson from USR to Hoboken. I agree that some type of tax or surcharge should be levied on the developers who “promised” that a minimum of children would be moving in because the apts. were for empty nesters. The Village sold out. It will never be the same once these projects are completed. I guess it’s called progress but if I wanted to live in Montclair or Hackensack I would have bought a home there. We will be selling soon and leaving NJ for good.