Ridgewood NJ, A resident up by Habernickel Park reported that on Saturday night January 14, at 1:30 AM (so by then it was early Sunday morning) loud talking, trucks, and snow blowing was taking place in Habernickel Park. As we all know, it was a light dusting of powdery snow, not a snow storm by any stretch. Most of us got by with doing no shoveling at all, since it was warm today and melted. At best a little salt on the sidewalks at Habernickel would have done the trick, spread by one quiet employee. This could have been done Sunday morning after 6 AM, long before anyone might be walking in the park. Two trucks, two men, loud and obnoxious when people were sleeping. How much did this cost in overtime on a Saturday night??? Could this have been some kind of retribution for the complaints that have come from neighborhood residents over the past year or so regarding Health Barn, safety issues, etc?
It took over 8 months to get a fence repaired up there, even though it was reported repeatedly. Surely that was more urgent (and more of a safety issue) than a dusting of snow at 1:30 in the morning
We are doing a lot of fiddling here over side issues. The real problem staring us in the face for commuters, parkers, taxpayers…in other words, all residents, is the massive apartment structures approved by Paul Aronson and his team just before he left office. (Saurabh, by the way, is one of the few who gets the magnitude of the problem left to us and who is trying to speak up and do something about it.)
Aronson sold off the town and his fellow citizens to developers. The question now is what is the current council doing to correct the problem. They have taken some initial steps, and that has been great, but further action is needed. Rather than worrying about whether or not there are 10 airbnb units in town, we need to be concerned about how many hundreds or thousands of new families are going to be shoved into our downtown. What will the effect be on our schools? On our taxes? On our Village way of life?
Speak up to the council about those issues before its too late. Quit worrying about how many cars are parked in your neighbor’s driveway, and let’s give some serious thoughts to a real danger.
There are several projects and services I want to share with you…
Traffic Alert – Starting Monday, January 16th PSEG will be working on Broad Street to upgrade the service in Ridgewood.Construction activities include the installation of manholes and underground pipe.The work will be done from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Mondaythrough Friday for approximately 3 months, weather permitting.Paving will take place after the 3-month construction period.Police will monitor the traffic but please try to plan alternate routes in order to avoid the traffic congestion in the construction area.
2017 Annual Parking Permits – Annual Resident, Non-resident and CBD employee parking permits are available for purchase at Village Hall.Driver’s License and car registration are required to apply for all parking permits.The Annual Parking Permits for residents which are available, cost $750 annually, and it allows residents to park in the Chestnut, North Walnut, and Cottage parking lots.We have reached our current capacity for the $1,000 Premium Permits, but you may call the Receptionist at 201-670-5500 ext. 200 to put your name on a waiting list for these permits, as new commuter parking spaces become available.
New in 2017 – “Shopper/Diner” parking spots are available in the Hudson, Prospect and Chestnut Lots.These parking spaces are marked with white signs and arrows, and commuter parking will not be allowed in these parking spaces.
Leaves…Our annual leaf collection is finished and we ask that from this time forward, please do not put any leaves in the street. Branches, plants and leaves can be brought to the Recycling Center or placed in paper biodegradable bags.All yard waste must be brought to the recycling center or held until yard waste pickup begins in the spring.Please consult your 2017 calendar for spring pickup schedules.
Christmas trees are still being picked up on both the east and west side of the Village each week.Please place them on your curb, and not into the street.
Snow and Ice Reminder – When there is snow and ice forecast, please assist us by placing your garbage cans at the end of your driveway, by the curb, but not in the street.This will ensure that our employees are able to safely pick up your solid waste. Additionally please remember to clear your sidewalks within 24 hours of snowfall.This is especially important on school walking routes, but is required in all residential zones.
In observance of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Village Hall and The Stable offices will be closed on Monday, January 16th There will be no sanitation or recycling pick up on that day.
Thank you for your cooperation,
Heather A. Mailander
Acting Village Manager
201/670-5500 x202
Mark Krulish , Staff Writer, @Mark_Krulish1:56 a.m. ET Jan. 15, 2017
RIDGEWOOD — The site of a former car dealership is once again a hub of commercial activity while an application before the village Planning Board, which would radically alter the property, awaits approval.
It has been nearly 4 1/2 years since Ken Smith Motors shuttered its doors after more than 60 years in business at its prominent location on Franklin Avenue next to the railroad underpass.
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January 14,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
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By Rajeev Dhir | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 13, 2017 at 7:04 AM, updated January 13, 2017 at 5:20 PM
New Jersey led the country in foreclosures for the second year in a row at more than double the national rate.
Atlantic City topped the national list of metro areas with the highest foreclosure rate in 2016 at 3.39 percent, followed by Trenton at 2.16 percent. RealtyTrac tracks metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000 or more.
The state posted an average foreclosure rate of 1.86 percent of housing units in 2016, according to data released by RealtyTrac. The national rate of 0.70 percent dropped to a 10-year low.
The state’s foreclosure rate for December was 0.2 percent, compared to the national rate of 0.06. The state saw an increase of 13 percent in overall foreclosure activity from last December, while the national average dropped almost 17 percent from a year ago.
Ridgewood NJ, The Airbnb website currently lists approximately 10 available short term rental properties within the Village. Anyone recognize a familiar house?
Ridgewood NJ, and idea proposed by Ridgewood resident Saurabh Dani on the Facebook page “it takes a Ridgewood Village ” and could lay to rest any ambitions of build a parking garage in Ridgewood .
Dani suggests, if you live at a walking distance from Glen Rock ,Ridgewood or HoHokus train stations, there may be an opportunity to make money.
How about renting your driveway to a village resident or a few village residents if it’s big enough.You can charge anything that’s less than 83$ a month depending on how far you live from a train station, as that’s what the town is charging and is profitable at that price.
83$ a month is 1000$ a year. To spend $1000 a year, most of us have to earn about 1600-1700 a year (pre tax). So this is a good bonus for not much work.. you will just need to designate a specific spot on your driveway and exchange money every month.
We can probably use this Facebook page to create this market place. Thoughts?
Ridgewood NJ, Bottom line, there’s now an ordinance that prohibits such short term rentals. Those wishing to snub their noses at it and continue (or start) running such operations risk being fined $1000 per day if found guilty in municipal court.
ORDINANCE NO. 3570 AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 117 OF THE CODE OF THE VILLAGE OF RIDGEWOOD ENTITLED “BUSINESSES AND OCCUPATIONS” AT ARTICLE I, SECTION 1A, AND TO CREATE A NEW ARTICLE IX ENTITLED “SHORT TERM RENTALS”. AMEND: ARTICLE I Section 117-1A ADVERTISE OR ADVERTISING: Any form of solicitation, promotion, and communication for marketing, used to solicit, encourage, persuade, or manipulate viewers, readers, or listeners into contacting for goods and/or services in violation of this Ordinance, as same may be viewed through various media including, but not limited to, newspapers, magazines, flyers, handbills, pamphlets, commercials, radio, direct mail, internet websites, or text or other electronic messages for the purpose of establishing occupancies or uses of rental property, for Consideration, which are prohibited by this Ordinance. HOUSKEEPING UNIT: Constitutes a family-type situation, ,involving one-or-more persons, living together that exhibit the kind of stability, permanency and functional lifestyle equivalent to that of a traditional family unit, as further described in the applicable reported and unreported decisions of the New Jersey Superior Court. OCCUPANT: Any individual inhabiting, using, living, gathering, entertaining, being entertained as a guest, or sleeping in a dwelling or a portion thereof, or having other permission or possessory rights or interest in the dwelling. OWNER: Any person(s) or entity(ies), association, limited liability company, corporation, or partnership, or any combination, who legally use, possess, own, lease, sub-lease or license (including an operator, principal, shareholder, director, agent, or employee, individually or collectively) that has charge, care, control ,or participates in the expenses and/or profit of a Dwelling Unit pursuant to a written or unwritten agreement, rental, lease, license, use, occupancy agreement or any other agreement. NEW ARTICLE ARTICLE IX: SHORT TERM RENTALS SECTION 117-56 – PERMITTED USE The residential occupancy of an otherwise lawful and lawfully occupied dwelling for a period of thirty (30) days or less by a person who is a member of the Housekeeping Unit of the Owner, without Consideration, such as house guests, is permitted. SECTION 117-57 – PROHIBITIONS: No person shall undertake, maintain, authorize, aid, facilitate, solicit and advertise any rental activity that violates any part or provisions of this Article. SECTION 117-57 -SHORT TERM RENTAL PROPERTY: Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Village Code, it shall be unlawful for any person, including but not limited to, and owner, lessor, sub lessor with any possessory interest in any dwelling, to receive compensation of any kind for the use, occupancy, or rental of any dwelling for a period of thirty (30) days or less. SECTION 117-59 – ENFORCEMENT: The provisions of this Article shall be enforced by the Village Zoning Officer, Fire Department, Police Department and any other Village Official or employee so designated by the Village Manager who all shall be authorized to issue summons or other appropriate civil violations or complaints for any violations of the terms and provisions of this Article. SECTION 117-60 – FINES AND PENALITES: Any person who is found or adjudicated to have violated any provisions of this Article shall be liable for a fine not to exceed one thousand ($1000.00) Dollars. Each day of any such violation after receiving written notice of same shall be a new and separate violation. SEVERABILTY: If any portion of this Ordinance is adjudged unconstitutional or invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, such judgment shall not affect or invalidate the remainder of this Ordinance but shall be confined in its effect to the provision directly involved in the controversy in which such judgment shall have been rendered. Except as hereby amended, all other sections of the Code of the Village of Ridgewood shall remain in full force and effect. This Ordinance shall take effect upon final passage and publication according to law. Ridgewood News-4116350 Fee: $71.30 December 16, 2016
To whomever posted -Anonymous January 12, 2017 at 8:05 pm- that put my AirBNB listing up with my address-which incidentally is kept totally confidential until AFTER the guest passes a 5-point security check. But Thank You for noticing that I am a hard-working professional who is willing to share her beautiful home with others. As an immigrant to this country, I founded a national association to help women. I help them achieve their national credential in order to find jobs, and get better ones, then I help them continue their education with one-on-one mentoring (some of the cars that are “in and out of there all the time”.)…so I guess I just like helping people. My guests park on my property and I have had no complaints from neighbors. AirBnb has helped me pay for taxes, repairs on my home, upgrade plumbing etc., so that the value is maintained. And who are the guests that stay with me? I have three different grandparents that come to visit their grandchildren, nurses that work long shifts at Valley Hospital, a son who lives in California that comes regularly to visit his mother in a nursing home, a self-employed marketing consultant who comes here for business, and then I have had two different couples who have stayed here while they bought a home in the area-they wanted to see what it was like living in Ridgewood–without this experience, they may not have chosen to live here! The sharing economy is an international model that can be found in small cities all over the world that only enhances the diversity and value of the community.
I continue to believe that Mayor Knudsen, Deputy Mayor Sedon and Councilman Hache are decent, reasonable people who want to do what is right for the village. Here is my appeal to them.
Please do not assume that the few loudest and most frequent voices you hear from are representative of the entire village, irrespective of what they say.
I, and a lot of people I know, did not vote against the previous council and for the current one because we had much of a view on the Valley expansion, Graydon, Schedler, or the parking garage. Neither did we vote because of those loud voices. What we voted against was the dismissive attitude of those council members against residents.
Now I do not believe that those council members were very being dismissive on purpose. They did very much want to win elections. However, they kept hearing from a specific group that their actions were popular, and that those opposing their proposals were a vocal and disruptive minority.
Unfortunately, I get the sense that the new council has become beholden to a different coterie with its own agenda. That coterie is openly dismissive of regular residents in extremely caustic terms. It is as if we have traded the tzar for the politburo. Questioning actions of the new council is dismissed as the handiwork of the Aronson crew.
I urge you to work for the wider village, and not just those voices and their interests. For example, on this issue it appears that the lack of commuters and abundance of casual diners in the coterie has led to this disastrous decision. I urge you to reverse this decision and in future, think about the outcome for all residents based on wider feedback, and not just based on what you hear from a few.
A decade or so ago, the Ridgewood village tried, via an arguably aggressive application of eminent domain principles, simply to take by forced sale the property upon which the “Ridgewood Garage” building stands. This was hot on the heels of the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision which, in order to find lawful the use by a Connecticut municipality of eminent domain to boot ordinary fee simple owners of residential properties in an “underperforming” (ahem!) neigborhood to make room for a proposed factory that mysteriously never got built, conveniently expanded the scope of the word “public” in the U.S. Constitution’s term “public use” to include a scheme that, at its heart, was nothing but a naked multistep attempt to eventually boost property tax revenue. The idea at the time was that the new U.S Supreme Court constitutional precedent rendered legitimate any property condemnation scheme that municipal powerbrokers could rig together that gave off the faintest whiff of a public benefit in the distant future, regardless of the immediately applicable common law rights of the owner of the targeted property or properties. One presumes the now battle-hardened owners of the Franklin Avenue parcel under discussion have been waiting to receive, at long last, a decent offer from the Village to purchase the lot that does not involve the coercion inherent in the use of the municipsl eminent domain power. Can it fairly be said that that particular lot, or, more broadly, that the “parking lottish” parts of the larger block defined by Ridgewood Avenue, Oak Street, Franklin Avenue and Walnut Street, is “blighted” to such a degree as to justify municipal action to use the eminent domain power to initiate a process by which it is redeveloped into a modern parking facility? The decision that was eventually taken years ago was that, despite the fact that the Village had already raised some $15 million via a corresponding municipal bond issuance to build a parking garage, the village would nevertheless relent, and not follow through on its threats to use its eminent domain power. We’ve since spent the proceeds of that bond issuance on other priorities. Unfortunately, we are still paying off the debt for a parking garage that, for good or ill, was never built.
Heading to Raymond’s for lunch. That’s Ridgewood all right. The “caring” community.”
Apparently no one gives a flying fuck that Raymond’s cheated their employees, waiters and waitresses, out of wages and tips and was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I remember, because I care about waiters and waitresses trying to make an honest living, and I won’t EAT at Raymond’s. Fuck with the word “dine.”
Also, the residents who complained that commuters should get priority parking in the CBD. Hey, those commuters, they are trying to support their families and spend time with their kids….. trying to find a work/life balance and commute to the Big Apple. The town should bend over backwards for them. They are the best people this country has to offer. And they cried cried cried in front of the council and I don’t think they got the sympathy , compassion and immediate help that they desperately need and deserve.
I am a senior and there is no skin off my nose for my opinion.
But if those commuters arrive late to their jobs they could be fired and end up homeless. Homelessness is a real problem. And no one gives a shit about the homeless. They blame the people who are homeless for not being responsible.
These Ridgewood commuters are the best that America produces …hard working responsible workers and parents. And my heart goes out to them. If I lived near the CBD I would offer my driveway for them. Those workers who live in Ridgewood , if they can’t find a parking space in town for lunch some day, they can brown bag it. Trust me, eating apples, walnuts, egg, and celery for lunch, health care costs would go down. The commuters cannot brown bag their commute.
