The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
Ridgewood NJ, Celebrating the 125th Anniversary of Ridgewood , the VILLAGE OF RIDGEWOOD invites you to the GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY of the new RIDGEWOOD PARKING GARAGE on Saturday, September 7th, 2019 at 9:00am .
Please come with your cameras to the Hudson Street Parking lot (corners of S. Broad and Prospect on Hudson St.) (across from Mt Carmel Church) Following the ceremony, you are invited for coffee at The Table at Latona’s – 26 E. Ridgewood Avenue (next to Haagen Daz) .
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The Hudson Street parking lot will be shut down as of August 19, 2019 for the construction of the parking garage. Please join us at the official groundbreaking ceremony, which will take place on September 7, 2019 at 9:00 a.m., at the Hudson Street parking lot.
So depressed by this. Utterly unneeded. The current library design is horrible and the new one is worse. Let’s NOT move the staircase and install a skylight and set up a stairway to Paradise. If books are no longer of interest, just raze the place.
Millions after millions after millions in new projects (parking garage, sports lighting, on and on) and we haven’t begun to see how much the new apartments/residents will cost us in countless ways.
PRESENTATION
HUDSON STREET PARKING GARAGE EXTERIOR MATERIALS & FINISHES
MAY 22, 2019 – 7:00PM
All Village residents are invited to view the presentation boards showing the outside materials and finishes for the Hudson Street Parking Garage, on May 22, 2019 at 7:00 p.m. in the Court Room of Village Hall, prior to the Village Council Work Session, which begins at 7:30 p.m. that evening.
Hey, ‘OMG guy/gal’…it’s not the garage as much as it is the a) wrong location and b) being built for the wrong reason. We’re going to shoe-horn a ginormus building in a tiny area with one-ways and narrow streets? Dumb. Financially, it’s a disaster that’s being foisted on the Ridgewood taxpayer at the behest of the shopowners who want people to buy their crappy, overpriced items after walking 5 blocks. One only needs to see the big smile on the mayor’s face when he stood net to Josh at the tree lighting. Perfect photo op time to build his Democrat resume.
Rome is Burning and we are writing story books about a leantoo shed close to not having any heat nor light , a filthy facility that the NJ Transit should rebuild in brick and
offer some protection from the elements ; that can be cleaned ,then locked at night like a real town.We need to check the water in this town..it’s getting a bit to wobbly intellect
wise. They keep shifting the happy together talk to avoid dealing with the real issues that are hard to address manage and take intelligent approach to.Happy Holidays Ridgewood a town worth fighting for …2019 needs a more realistic plan on cost containment and cancelation of massive Hudson st garage plans in order to cut our longer term losses .
So far we have about $13mn in debt obligations related to parking garage bonding’s… given the historical pattern of delays, expensive ‘change orders’, and cost overruns associated with any project the Village has financed ($500K golden toilet anyone?), my guess is this will come in over $20 million and run at an operating loss of more than $1 million annually. And that’s without ‘coin boy’ and his enablers stealing our quarters. All this, just as interest rates spike. It adds up to more financial lunacy from the Village, and taxpayers get screwed again.
Everyone should be focused on the rates required in the future to pay the debt service on the garage. Meter rates will be too high, the majority of retail businesses in town will suffer only a few nearby restaurants will benefit. A pending fiscal disaster, being backstopped by residents.
The 2-1 YES vote did not sufficiently outline the costs of the garage. The NO voters likely considered the costs. The majority of the YES voters thought it was “free”, of would be totally self sustaining.
What every single one of them lacks is a financial brain and apparently all also are “shopaholics”, who can’t wait to find something else they can waste money on. As long as they, personally, only have to pay a small part of what they are buying, building, etc., they are all for it. I have to assume they are all personally rich since they don’t seem to care about all the expenses they are signing up, for which the town must pay. The last Council blasted the townspeople if they opposed what the council wanted. This one just keeps whistling along and stating they don’t have ANY knowledge of ANY objections to their expensive plans.
photo of Ken Smith
August 8,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , in April 2017 the Ridgewood blog https://theridgewoodblog.net/ridgewoods-central-business-district-problem-is-not-parking-but-congestion/ suggested that the over looked issue for the central business district is not parking , but congestion . There are just to many choke points in the CBD. Be they caused by ill planned “traffic easing” with suicide bike lanes or PSE&G upgrades it has become increasingly difficult to get in or out of the Central Business District.
suicide bike lane
With 3 current projects going forward , Brogan Cadillac, Ken Smith and now the Hudson Street garage congestion will be far worse than it is now .We still need need a comprehensive plan that factors in moderate development, infrastructure , retail, restaurants , mass transit , pedestrians, cycles and parking .
Brogan
Does anyone have a source for fake money? Maybe if we made a visual presentation on how big that amount of money is, the council could understand it better. They appear to be only able to visualize in their minds sums that do not have a large amount of zeros behind them. I was under the impression that the council members were normal people and not among the extremely wealthy in town. I guess I made the mis-assumption that ordinary people could keep track of their money when the council shows it’s only the extremely rich who can count–or even see- the zeros. An unneeded garage and an expensive building that the last I heard the “water company had enough money for the purchase.” I thought that quote was rather interesting as the dispute between towns who think they were overcharged and got court approval to collect has not even been considered as a possible loss of that extra money in repayments demanded by the court. I’m really beginning to wonder if the members of the council can even balance their own checkbooks as they certainly don’t hesitate to spend on bonds for many years in the future and don’t see how this could make it extremely impossible for Ridgewood to balance theirs.
You were elected on the premise that you would only act on things that were good for Ridgewood and reduce costs in every way possible. At this rate you all might have the dubious honor of being the council who threw away the most money in all of Ridgewood’s recorded history during your term on the council.
Enough of this economics logic stuff. Yes, the economics of this mega garage are nonsense, but no amount of logical argument is going to stop it. This is local politics at work and this is how local politics works. A small minority of people stand to gain from the project. This includes a few business owners and everyone who is involved in the project (lawyers, architects, contractors, construction workers, etc). The taxpayers are the OPM (other peoples money) who foot the bill for it all. However, these taxpayers are mostly oblivious to this whole thing, mostly focused on their kids, their jobs, their social lives, their vacations, etc. This is how it works. It’s not a Ridgewood thing, it goes on everywhere. However, what makes this work well is that towns like Ridgewood are affluent, and therefore, this kind of thing is a good place to do it. It also helps that Ridgewood is a transient town, where people move in raise kids, then move on. Ridgewood is the perfect set of circumstances for these opportunists.
Make the citizens of Ridgewood Great again.Stop this bullshit boondoggle..it’s not too late..the carpetbaggers housing and politicos will be long gone with the cash and moving onto their next victim communities..clear case of others peoples (OUR) money and future higher taxes to pay for the bonding which will have to be paid as a priority obligation to the banks and funding sources..they love town infrastructure debt..they know the taxpayers have to be assessed to Pay them Back,Stop this huge mistake..we are not talking about the health bond or turf fields here..this is a forever damaging proposal.Pave ,insert concrete curbing ,storm sewers lighting and lines for car stalls and get back to work VC
VC, listen up. Lease the Hudson lot to a developer for 99 years. Let the developer pay for it completely. Let them charge what they want to make it a profitable. Let them pay the cost of maintenance. Let them cut deals with local merchants, banks and restaurants for validated parking, and take nothing from them except the usual property taxes. Then, see how many developers step up. If the number is ZERO, then you have an indication that the idea is a LOSER. The Village already collects taxes from the CBD property owners, so why LOSE money by going into the garage business?
A land lease is a type of financial arrangement in which the ground under a structure is leased, rather than sold to the builder, meaning that the land and the structure are owned independently.
The Village should enter into a long term land lease with parking garage company who will pay to construct and operate the parking facility.. Since they are an independent business they should be able to charge whatever rates they wish.. Ultimately the market will determine how much people are willing to pay.
