Consensus can be reached on issue
To the Editor:
I believe wide areas of consensus that currently exist coming out of the Planning Board process for higher density family housing provides hope that we all will be able to do the right thing. Consensus can reach 100 percent if we address the shared fiscal impact which has not yet been considered because, according to our village planner, the Planning Board was precluded from taking it into consideration.
We are all rightfully entitled to develop and invest in private property in Ridgewood. The planning process, while fully transparent to the lawyers involved, was a convoluted community management practice that left out the very simple moral difference between right and wrong. Our free market affords a range of business practices, but one’s profits shouldn’t be realized by increasing the tax burden of every other member of the community they belong to.
We know that every added school-aged resident entering Ridgewood costs more to educate than any family pays in taxes. And, that every town in America has a socialized educational system that distributes the costs of educating some of our residents amongst all. As a parent of three children, I am acutely aware of this since private tuition could easily cost me six times my current tax contribution to the education budget.
We also know that Ridgewood’s ratings on the Internet are the No. 1 reason people move here, but less obvious is that our special education programs, having been labeled “centers of excellence,” draw families to our town as well. The proposed apartments not only appeal to anyone with a child, but they are an ideal environment in which to raise a subset of special needs children for whom living in a detached home is potentially dangerous.
Because of these realities, not “projections,” the negative impact of higher density on our taxes is undeniable. The only question is by how much. It is simply wrong for a select few to leverage our socialized education system to guarantee themselves a business profit on the backs of every one of their tax-paying neighbors. We might easily reach consensus were developers to create an escrow account to reimburse the Board of Education for the cost of educating every new child they bring into town, but I doubt projected profits would allow it.
A simpler way would be for all of us to do the right thing by the one group of our residents who are not being currently accommodated. We can limit apartments to a 55-and-over demographic in order to provide for the current demand for empty-nester housing in town and attract retirees seeking the superior quality of life that our idyllic village setting provides at a stone’s throw from New York City. It’s a no brainer, its fair, and it will bring down taxes for us all.
Martin Walker
Ridgewood
