How Ridgewood Lost its Way

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Village resident Steve Kim posted a summary of how the Central Business District lost much of its character and how Ridgewood taxpayers will get stuck with the bill . The poorly planned high density housing will lead to large increases in property taxes to cover water, sewage , public safety, storm water , roads, and schools.

Kim said in his post , “The push for tone of “civility” and “unity” in Ridgewood was initiated by none other than the former Mayor Ahronson. He and two other then members of the Council formed a unified voting block that allowed the local developers to take a flawed ordinance (Ordinance 3066, passed by the former Mayor Pfund and colleagues in 2007 and repealed in 2017) to an unimagined use to push for high density housing beyond what the master plan (now revised) had intended. Many rational steps and checks were skipped in the process.

If you need a reminder of the end result, drive around downtown. More of what you see is possible if we aren’t attentive, and the existing residents most likely will get the short end of the deal in terms of quality of life and economics.

Tone policing is not democracy. It’s a weapon against democracy since the objective is to suppress facts and obfuscate truths. Democracy is about debating, disagreeing, and disrupting, and ultimately getting the core of issues. Democracy is about embracing differences. It’s messy and annoying, but there is no better alternative.
Let’s see past the tone management and the usual rhetoric and focus on issues and facts. Onus is on us as voters to do so, or we may get a repeat or rhyme of what led us to the misfit high density buildings downtown.”