if you do not want anything built in the Village how do you propose that Ridgewood meet it’s state mandated COAH (Council on Affordable Housing) obligation ? All of the proposed developments will have a set-aside for affordable housing. If the private sector does not provide it then Ridgewood must…..and.they will do it using your tax dollars.. Time to get real.. Something is going to get built regardless of all the yapping you and others do.. One way or another trees will come down and cement will be poured.
The last thing Ridgewood needs is high density housing. Our previous “leaders” sold ridgewood residents down the river. I understand that ordinances going forward for high density have been changed, but the original ordinance which allows for the 4 high density projects still prevail. Shouldn’t the original ordinance be repealed to negate the 4 projects that are going forward? If the ordinance was passed under a cloud, it should be repealed, in it entirety.
Traffic on our streets is unbearable now. Ridgewood is a village, not a city. We don’t want to be Hoboken we want to be a bucolic village.
Please, current leaders, don’t let this happen! Trees NOT cement..
Ridgewood NJ, councilmen Ramon Hache gave us an update of the Affordable Housing Litigation and how its effecting the Village of Ridgewood .
According to the councilmen , “This litigation continues from 2015 when the Village filed its Declaratory Judgment complaint in Superior Court seeking approval of its adopted housing plan and immunity from builders remedy law suits while the decision by the Court was pending. Presently, the Village enjoys immunity from suit until the end of January, 2018. It is conducting Court mandated settlement negotiations with Fair Share Housing Center managed by the Court appointed Special Master, Michael Bolan, PP. The effort is to resolve all issues with FSHC and reach an understanding with the Special Master and all interested parties to present an agreed upon Fair Share and Housing Plan to the Court sometime in the next few months of 2018. A significant part of the Housing plan designed to meet the constitutionally mandated requirement of providing affordable housing in the Village was approved in 2017 by the Planning Board for 4 developments in the Central Business district. These four developments are known as:
KS Broad -Ken Smith site;
The Enclave – South maple and East Ridgewood avenue intersection;
Chestnut Village – Chestnut Street, north of Franklin Avenue;
The Dayton – formerly Brogan Cadillac site on South Broad Street ”
Councilmen Hache states , “the Village council has pushed very hard to lower the density of each development and provide a component of “Special Needs” housing in at least one of the developments with the assistance of the Untied Way to assist persons and families in the area who are searching for residential living accommodations for special needs individuals. Settlement negotiations may provide additional Special Needs housing through an agreement with West Bergen Mental Healthcare and the Chestnut Village developers that will require approval of the master, FSHC and ultimately the Court.”
Details of the number of units of each development can be obtained by reading the Planning Board’s Resolutions of approval of each development.
I agree with most of what you say but not voting for Aronsohn. I won’t vote at all. Now I have understood what RW politicians are made of, it is NJ after all. They can tear their pie anyway they want but I won’t support any of them. This town is on the path of no return. Whoever thinks that raising voice works is a classic naive. I really expected much more from Susan Knudsen but she turned out to be a huge disappointment.
High density housing set the stage for developers to subdivide and cram lots. This is only the beginning and there is no recourse to stop them. It’s all now permissible and within code. How does Planning Board say No? Attorneys will milk this.
Reader said, “Nice to see that ya’ll are finally taking your head out of your asses and realize that you have been getting screwed for years. And James, stop with the Union City crap. It’s getting old. We don’t need “massive upgrades” to anything. Do we need extra capacity to bring the town into the future? Sure. But your doomsday predictions because a few developers understand what the towns future residents want is classic of the Ridgewood NIMBY attitude that keeps anything from moving around here. Including how the municipal govt. works. You want change or will you continue to bitch and moan anytime anyone takes action. We can’t move forward if you insist on remaining in the past.”
Best for you to take your head out of the sand ,
Ridgewood as a nice place to live was virtually destroyed by the prior council or the 3 Amigos. The push to turn Ridgewood into Union city , with high density housing creates a need for massive upgrades of the Village infrastructure . This will take a decade , water, sewer, traffic, schools ,police , fire and so on all need massive taxpayer funded upgrades thanks to the actions of the 3 amigos and Roberta . The Villages ability to increase revenue has also been curtailed by giveaway contracts and bad leases . So no one with any sense will stop blaming the Paul Aronsohn , Gween and Uncle Albert as well as their side kick flunky Roberta
PLANNING BOARD PUBLIC MEETING AGENDA Tuesday, December 5, 2017 Village Hall Court Room– 7:30 P.M.
(all timeframes and the order of agenda items below are approximate and subject to change)
7:30 p.m. – Call to Order, Statement of Compliance, Flag Salute, Roll Call – In accordance with the provisions of Section 10:4-8d of the Open Public Meetings Act, the date, location, and time of the commencement of this meeting is reflected in a meeting notice, a copy of which schedule has been filed with the Village Manager and the Village Clerk, The Ridgewood News and The Record newspapers, and posted on the bulletin board in the entry lobby of the Village municipal offices at 131 North Maple Avenue, and on the Village website, all in accordance with the provisions of the Open Public Meetings Act.Roll call: Knudsen, Voigt, Joel, Patire, Scheibner, Torielli, McWilliams, Barto, Van Goor
2. 7:30 p.m. – 7:35 p.m. – Public Comments on Topics not Pending Before the Board
3. 7:35 p.m. – 7:40 p.m. – Committee/Commission/Professional Updates for Non Agenda Topics, Correspondence Received by the Board 4. 7:40 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. – 257 Ridgewood Avenue, LLC, Block 3703, Lot 4, 6, & 8.01, Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan – Adoption of Memorializing Resolution of Approval
5. 8:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. – Ordinance #3625, which amends Chapter 190, Land Use and Development to permit certain illuminated signs in the B-1, B-2, and C Districts
6. 8:30 p.m. – 8:35 p.m. – 200/210 South Broad Avenue, LLC, Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan and C Variance, Block 3905, Lot 6 and 7– Pubic Hearing continued from November 7, 2017 – to be carried to January 16, 2018 without further notice and without prejudice to the Board
7. 8:35 p.m. – 9:35 p.m. – Hopper Ridge Townhomes, Informal Review, Durar Avenue, Block 4104, Lot 3 –carried from October 3, 2017
8. 9:35 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. – Robert Jennee, Minor Subdivision and C Variance, 246 Mountain Road, Block 2509, Lot 13.01- continued from October 17, 2017 without further notice and without prejudice to the Board
9. 10:30 p.m. – 10:35 p.m. – Adoption of Minutes: February 7, 2017
10. 10:35 p.m. – Executive Session (if necessary)
11. Adjournment – In accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act, all meetings of the Ridgewood Planning Board (i.e., official public meetings, work sessions, pre-meeting assemblies and special meetings) are public meetings, which are always open to members of the general public.
Professional Staff: Christopher Martin, Esq., Board Attorney; Christopher J. Rutishauser, Village Engineer; Brigette Bogart, Planner; Michael Cafarelli, Board Secretary
Members: Susan Knudsen, Jeff Voigt, Joel Torielli, Melanie McWilliams, David Scheibner, Richard Joel, Debbie Patire, Frances Barto, James Van Goor
Fair Share Housing will bully their way as they know nobody will bother to fight them. It takes balls to stand up and this VC and the village in general is full of lightweights who are more concerned with leaf collection than the long term livability in this place. I would rather see us risk a lawsuit than just crawl under a rock and be inundated with hundreds of apartments who will basically spell the end for Ridgewood and the birth of New Hackensack.
Remember 2-5 years and the current Valley location will be a good number of affordable housing units
The same folks who vote for leaders who support these ideas seem to be shocked when it hits home
The new governor and team are all for this with Bergen County and towns like RW in the cross hairs
Valley will be missed and those who voted for all of this will seem shocked
This affordability thing is one of the most perverted things I have come across.. How can an organization such as Fair Share housing have so much leverage in dictating their agenda. How can they play as they wish with the quality of life of so many towns, villages and people who have worked hard to make it where they are living now. Affordable housing can be beneficial to a handful of people but can be devastating to so many more. Yet there is no public outrage when they impose totally unrealistic numbers to nice towns without giving a sh!t in how people in these places feel about this. Local governments feel so powerless even though they represent the will of of local population.There are plenty of affordable places in NJ. Whoever can’t afford Ridgewood, HoHoKus, Montvale etc. can move to Paterson, Clifton etc. This has nothing to do with humanism, this is total abuse.
Hillsdale NJ, Ballot questions were overwhelmingly approved in four Bergen County towns, Residents in Hillsdale, Park Ridge and River Vale voted this month in support of non-binding questions that called for the towns to stop issuing permits for large-scale housing projects until statewide affordable-housing rules are established. Dumont voters also approved a question that asked if the state Legislature should make appointments to the Council on Affordable Housing board and amend the Fair Housing Act. In each case residents voted against forced overdevelopment, did not want high-density apartments in their towns, and they particularly reject high-density apartments built because of builder’s remedy lawsuits.
In 2015, the state Supreme Court ruled that municipalities should bypass the non-functioning Council on Affordable Housing and go directly to trial court judges to determine their affordable-housing obligations. Since then, many towns have been involved in costly litigation involving the Fair Share Housing Center, an affordable-housing advocacy group, to determine how many units of low- to moderate-income housing they constitutionally must provide.
Fair Share Housing has been accused of setting affordable-housing numbers that are unrealistic in relation to the ability of the town to absorb such significant housing levels. The fact is with housing comes infrastructure, police, fire, schools, sewage and water . Many politicians have referred to the Fair Housing Act as the “developers full employment act”
Local lawmakers are hoping Trenton is listening . Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, drafted the questions passed in Hillsdale, Park Ridge and River Vale. Schepisi, R-River Vale, has been at the forefront of efforts to come up with a statewide affordable-housing solution. She believes there is a more responsible way to meet obligations to provide low- to moderate-income housing and has been covered on this blog extensively .
Speaking of the wall, did anyone see the summary of Vagianos’ housing comments as they appeared in the Ridgewood News? I am hoping they were mis-reported, but as I read them, he won’t comment on his view of the multi-family housing debacle in our state because the Courts are dealing with it.
Has he never taken high school civics? Legislators legislate and judges interpret.
If he does not understand his role as a legislator in our tri-partite government, he should drop out of the race now and go back to school for a while.
I would like to hear Vagianous’ view on housing – – as well as the view of all the candidates – – and what legislation they would support or introduce to roll back these court ordered mandates that are threatening to strangle towns like Ridgewood.
We face the prospect of thousands of apartments being forced into our town and surrounding towns. Anyone running for office must have a view – – a firm view – – not a mealy mouthed missive about how they don’t view it as their job to protect the standard of living for which their fellow citizens worked so hard.
This is the single most important issue we face and we need decisive leadership on the issue, not dithering.
Lot of water leaks in town – – our infrastructure is aging and we need to take preventive steps. At the same time, we need to be prepared for the additional strain of the hundreds of new families who are going to be moving downtown once the projects are completed.
Is the council taking steps for this gathering storm?
No-one seems to want to answer the questions put forth in many prior blogs.
1. Where is the water going to come from to supply the needs of all these new residences? I realize they don’t water but hundreds of new families’ personal uses would probably end up to close to the amount of water the lawns consume. They will also have to have some beautification of lawns and trees which will also require watering.
2. Will residents of other areas using Ridgewood Water also be required to limit outdoor water usage as we do? There has been no such agreement in place up to now. Will we be able to hire summer employees (the old crossing guards?) to drive around Ridgewood in the dawn hours and write down all addresses of lawns being sprinkled in violation of the rules? We all know this goes on!
Ridgewood NJ, if you are opposed to COAH/Fair Share Housing in NJ? Being overrun with developers taking advantage of its unfair, unconstitutional formula? Express your protest at the voting booth on Election Day! One of its major funders is the Philip and Tammy Murphy Family Foundation and, as we know, Phil Murphy is the Democratic nominee for NJ Governor.
FOUNDATIONS
Bridge of Books Foundation
David L. Kirp Fund
Eustace Foundation…
Lauren Rose Albert Foundation
NJ SIM Foundation
100 Who Care
Pennsylvania Automotive Association Foundation
*Philip and Tammy Murphy Family Foundation*
Robert P. Kelly Family Foundation
Siegel Family Fund (a donor-advised fund of USAA Giving Fund)
Walsh Family Fund of the Community Foundation of NJ
