Tag: multi-family housing

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Reader says Calling Villagers crackpot laypeople is yond belief. Who was the alleged comment really directed to?

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Reader says Calling Villagers crackpot laypeople is yond belief. Who was the alleged comment really directed to?

He must have meant the “laypeople” on the planning board — perhaps, those asking questions about the faulty premises in the reports of the developers so-called experts, or maybe those who dare to ask what the effect of 400 new families will be on schools, traffic and other aspects of village life. Shame on those planning board members who dare to ask questions of those who testify before the board!!

Could this really have been the developers’ response to the public or did the paper get the quote wrong. Is Saracino that much of a sniveling buffoon who thinks he can get away with destroying the town by insulting Villagers? I suspect there must have been a mistake. Surely, Mr. Saracino is not an ignorant bully who thinks he can insult and buy his way into re-making Ridgewood a city made in his image.

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Reader says I don’t understand the poisonous anti-development sentiment

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Reader says I don’t understand the poisonous anti-development sentiment

Is anyone thinking that, as detailed in this post, the inventory of apartments in Ridgewood is old with limited ability to modernize because of the types of buildings that were the style in 1915 and again in the 1950′s are not want people want today? Is anyone thinking that newer and more modern style apartment will attract young professionals who want to start a life in Ridgewood and empty nesters who want to stay in Ridgewood? That combination will bring a vibrancy to Ridgewood so this will not just be a village with parents of school age children who leave when the kids graduate.

As a parent, I find the box of kleenex on the back to school supply list offensive beyond words but I do it and for our children, we write cheeks all year long for teams, field trips, concerts, book fairs, etc., etc. It is called the cost of living in a Village with high expectations for the schools. It is the cost of living so close to NYC.

I don’t understand the poisonous anti-development sentiment and the yard signs that imply the end of the world as we know it if things change.

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PR Representative for Mr. Saraceno (The Enclave) Uses Valley tactic of belittling and attacking the opposition

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file photo Boyd Loving

PR Representative for Mr. Saraceno (The Enclave) Uses Valley tactic of belittling and attacking the opposition

Loved in the article in The Ridgewood News where I believe it was the PR Representative for Mr. Saraceno/The Enclave stated that, “The crackpot opinions of lay people have to be weighed for what they are”. Very nice. Not sure how calling people crackpots is going to help push through your development.

This is the exact same tactic that Valley has been employing for years. Anyone that dares to disagree with us is part of an ignorant minority. Those that don’t know history.

Funny none of the “The crackpot lay people”  walked off with $460,000 worth of quarters right under everyone at Village Hall’s nose .

None of “The crackpot lay people” spent $500,000 on a toilet for vets field .

None of “The crackpot lay people”spent $9 million on renovating the Village Hall from flood damage only nto have it flooded out on the very first rain ..

the list is almost endless

From turf fields in flood zones , banning banks , higher density housing means less traffic  to math classes that dont involve addition .

But Since you continue to ask none of “The crackpot lay people” would have even considered highering a Profession “crack pot” like Marty Brooks to be Superintendent of Schools . The BOE had spent countless amounts of tax payer money to a “search firm” which somehow failed to report Marty’s very checkered past . The first 30 pages of a Google search turned up among other things , the “WE HATE MARTY BROOKS ” website , a petition signed by over 800 parents  looking to have him removed from his job in Long Island  and a whole host of derogatory information . This blog was contacted by those same caring parents looking warn the Village of our coming doom . Education after all is about kids learning something , its not about teachers unions, overpaid administrators or wasteful pet projects . The Village ended up after a bit with a highly qualified , local resident Daniel Fishbein who was clearly the right choice to begin with , you can not possible tell me that the schools , though having some ups and downs are not far more focused on the “Tradition of Excellence ” now than they were then .

The point once again is perhaps its time to start questioning the judgement of many of the so called “experts “, and start listening to all the “lay people”.

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Keep an open mind on new housing

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Keep an open mind on new housing

APRIL 4, 2014    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014, 12:31 AM
PAGES: 1 2 > DISPLAY ON ONE PAGE

Keep an open mind on new housing
Ed Sullivan

to the editor:

The year 1915 saw great change in Ridgewood when the first multifamily building went up at 263 Franklin Ave., where it still stands today. As demand grew, six more apartment complexes were added through the 1920s.

“Will these new apartments destroy our village?” residents must have asked.

Sound familiar? With a Master Plan amendment currently before the Ridgewood Planning Board, this question has emerged again.

The apartment building history of Ridgewood shows a pattern: The first apartments went up 90-100 years ago. Responding to post-war demand, a second wave of 15 complexes followed during the 1950s-60s.

With each wave, Ridgewood embraced the new while preserving the “old.” History tells us that Ridgewood has a wonderful capacity to adapt to the times while maintaining its excellent schools, charming character and vibrant downtown.

Fifty years after the last significant apartment build-out, new demographic forces are driving a third round, driven by baby boomers and young people.

Empty nesters and baby boomers like me are downsizing at an accelerating pace, but we do not wish to live in a senior community.

Today’s active boomers and retirees desire a modern, high-end option, with amenities and conveniences that come with a walkable downtown setting.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-letters-to-the-editor/letter-keep-an-open-mind-on-new-housing-1.841702#sthash.gup9CJqI.dpuf

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Debate continues on proposed multifamily housing in Ridgewood

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Debate continues on proposed multifamily housing in Ridgewood

APRIL 4, 2014    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014, 12:31 AM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
PAGES: 1 2 > DISPLAY ON ONE PAGE

Few new developments were announced at Tuesday’s Planning Board hearing on proposed changes to the village master plan that would allow high-density multifamily housing in the downtown, though the debate rages on.

The hearings – and increasing public criticism of the projects – have been ongoing since December. More than two years ago, several developers came forward with proposals for downtown multifamily housing developments that are not allowed under the current master plan, prompting a series of Planning Board workshops prior to the hearings.

On Tuesday, after the Planning Board spent nearly three hours questioning the two planners representing three current housing proposals, opposition leaders expressed some optimism, believing that this questioning indicated improved scrutiny of the projects. But representatives of the developers continue to insist that public skepticism appears to be based on misconceptions, not facts.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/debate-continuesfor-developers-planners-cbr-1.841684#sthash.LxOLBVXQ.dpuf

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Developer says projects can save Ridgewood’s Central Business District

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Developer says projects can save Ridgewood’s Central Business District

APRIL 4, 2014    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014, 12:31 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER

John Saraceno is aware that many of his Ridgewood neighbors, for varying reasons, oppose his plan to construct 52 luxury apartments near the intersection of North Maple and Franklin avenues. But the developer and village resident contends that downtown multifamily housing will have a greater positive impact on the municipality than what others believe.

Hosting his third informal open house for interested residents last Thursday, Saraceno hoped to address any lingering concerns and speak to the specifics of his proposed apartment complex, dubbed the Enclave. What he encountered were many faces new to his application as well as the separate plans for the Chestnut Village and the Dayton housing projects.

The Ridgewood Planning Board is currently considering an amendment to the village’s master plan that, if approved, would rezone sections of the Central Business District (CBD) and allow the development of high-density, multifamily housing. As it presently reads, the master plan does not permit these types of projects.

Opponents of the amendment argue that the sheer volume of apartments will create an influx of new residents, which will lead to increased vehicular traffic and overloaded schools. Other contentions include the added burden on Ridgewood’s aging infrastructure as well as a fairness argument — some have made claims that out-of-towners rent apartments, thereby avoiding property tax bills, simply to send their children to the village’s public schools.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/developer-projects-can-save-cbd-housing-proposals-1.841692#sthash.kD7kvl3H.dpuf

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Public hearing concerning a proposed amendment to the Land Use Plan Element of the Master Plan within the Central Business District

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file photo this is Times Square NYC

Public hearing concerning a proposed amendment to the Land Use Plan Element of the Master Plan within the Central Business District 

Special Planning Board Amendment to Meeting Schedule – April 1 Meeting

Special Public Meeting: Tuesday, April 1, 2014

In accordance with the provisions of the “Open Public Meetings Act,” please be advised that the Planning Board has scheduled a special public meeting and work session for TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2014, in the GEORGE WASHINGTON MIDDLE SCHOOL AUDITORIUM, 155 Washington Place, Ridgewood, NJ beginning at 7:30 p.m.

The Board may take official action during this Special Public Meeting. The agenda for the meeting includes the following:

1. Continued public hearing concerning a proposed amendment to the Land Use Plan Element of the Master Plan, which amendment would recommend creation of new zone districts and changes in zone district boundaries within the Central Business District and surrounding area including AH-2, B-3-R, C-R and C Zone Districts.

2. Other Planning Board business per the agenda.

The proposed master plan amendment and related exhibits are at the office of the Secretary of the Ridgewood Planning Board on the third floor of Village Hall, 131 North Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, New Jersey and are available for public inspection Monday-Friday between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. The amendment and exhibits are also posted as a courtesy on the Village’s website at www.ridgewoodnj.net.

All meetings of the Ridgewood Planning Board (i.e., official public meetings, work session meetings, pre-meeting assemblies and special meetings) are public meetings which are always open to members of the general public.

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Residents need to consider what they want village to be

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Residents need to consider what they want village to be

MARCH 28, 2014    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2014, 12:32 AM

Residents need to consider what they want village ‘to be’
E. Martin Walker

To the editor:Kudos to Citizens for a Better Ridgewood (CBR) for challenging real estate planner’s preposterous projections of limited school impact. In our globalized economy characterized by free information flows, it’s unrealistic to assume families willing to live in one-bedroom apartments won’t move here simply for the schools. Projections based on “similar” communities are utterly meaningless for the simple reason that there aren’t any.We should be grateful that CBR responded to higher density proposals before the Planning Board. Its calling for “vision” around the “bricks and mortar” part of our future is a necessary, but insufficient condition for going forward. Can we now hear from a community planner? Without arriving at consensus about the kind of community we want, quibbling over building heights, number of units and traffic is like re-arranging chairs on the Titanic.

What do you want us to be? The OED defines “village” as a “collection of dwelling houses and other buildings, larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town…” Ridgewood began as a railroad town centered around shipping farm goods to NYC and the settlement of north Bergen by those seeking homes in the most desirable physical environment on earth (at least for nine months of the year) while making money in what was then one of the least desirable. Suburbanization changed the definition of “villages” and “towns” by creating communities no longer organized around trade, and Ridgewood is currently a perfect example of a community now fully organized around the economy of growing families. The surplus created by families is not money, but people, and nobody does it better!

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-letters-to-the-editor/letter-residents-need-to-consider-what-they-want-village-to-be-1.753132#sthash.Bi7tBscO.dpuf

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Reader says the Village Council needs to stop allowing special interests like Valley Hospital and other real estate developers to determine our agenda

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Reader says the Village Council needs to stop allowing special interests like Valley Hospital and other real estate developers to determine our agenda

Our leadership needs to start thinking beyond the next election cycle and stop allowing special interests like Valley Hospital and other real estate developers to determine our agenda. We have been in a reactive mode for too long and need an elected official without a personal agenda to map out a vision for the future in a more collaborative way.

Right now we have 3 council members that vote as a block – since they have a majority, they get to decide which of their individual pet projects will get approved first. Do we want these 3 people or ANY 3 people to be able to decide what happens to our town? What they are doing is just wrong. I’m sure that some lawyer out there will say that it’s legal, but that doesn’t make it any less wrong.

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Reader says the current problems obviously start at the top with our very ambitious Mayor and his dubious team.

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Reader says the current problems obviously start at the top with our very ambitious Mayor and his dubious team.

While our choices are few in the upcoming election, we should all be aware that one candidate, Mr. Albano appears to be aligned with the Mayor. Like Mrs. Hauck, Mr. Albano is a decent person that is passionate about a single issue but has no other real qualifications for the job. The current voting block of 3 needs to be broken up, not added to.

Mr. Sedon on the other hand has covered countless meetings for the Ridgewood News and is intimately familiar with the budgeting process and all municipal departments. He is an independent thinker and has a healthy skepticism for less than credible “expert” testimony about the Hospital and high density housing.

Mrs. Kundson is also an independent thinker who will not just vote with the establishment. She appears to be unafraid of the political retribution that Mr. Aronsohn, Mrs. Hauck and Mr. Pucciarelli have wielded over the past year against their adversaries.

Please do your homework – all of the candidates are very approachable. Please ask each one where they stand on Valley and the apartments. Get it in an e-mail if possible. The 3 incumbents are masters of saying one thing but meaning another. They are political hacks at best and have succeeded this week in converting Ridgewood from a local laughingstock into a national laughingstock. Bravo.

1-800-PetMeds Private Label

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Readers Says People do, year after year, fall in love with “small town” Ridgewood

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Readers Says People do, year after year, fall in love with “small town” Ridgewood

People do, year after year, fall in love with Ridgewood and chose buy their homes and raise their families here. According to money magazine, 2013 report, Americas top 50 small towns are not only thriving economically, they’ve also got all you could want in a place to raise a family: plenty of green space, good schools, and a strong sense of community. Ridgewood is not on the top 50 list and that is not surprising. But maybe we should strive to acquire some of the attributes that land a community on this list. The majority of towns on this list all seem to have same words sprinkled throughout their descriptions: nature, open space, recreation, preserved, protected, conservation etc. Every singe town on this list mentions some sort of recreational option and seemingly recognizes the importance of open space. Read the list and take note.

https://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/best-places/?iid=BPL_lp_header

These small towns range in size from 10,000 residents to about 50,000. In Ridgewood, we are a population of 25,000, so we land somewhere in the middle. Our Village government needs to seriously consider what is it that makes a town a more attractive place to live. They need to start using the words, “nature, protect and preserve’, a little more in their planning efforts. If these are such important factors in some of the best places to live, why do we seem to put such little value on them in our Village? There are serious efforts in this town to ridicule those who value open space and preservation. Community views in Ridgewood are often belittled behind closed doors and disregarded in public forums as well. It seems as if this town is moving farther and farther from the top 50 list and our Village leaders are leading the way. Do we value money and little else? Sure seems like we do.

1-800-PetMeds Private Label

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Special Ridgewood Planning Board Amendment to Meeting Schedule – April 1

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Special Ridgewood Planning Board Amendment to Meeting Schedule – April 1 Meeting

Special Public Meeting: Tuesday, April 1, 2014

In accordance with the provisions of the “Open Public Meetings Act,” please be advised that the Planning Board has scheduled a special public meeting and work session for TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2014, in the GEORGE WASHINGTON MIDDLE SCHOOL AUDITORIUM, 155 Washington Place, Ridgewood, NJ beginning at 7:30 p.m.

The Board may take official action during this Special Public Meeting. The agenda for the meeting includes the following:

1. Continued public hearing concerning a proposed amendment to the Land Use Plan Element of the Master Plan, which amendment would recommend creation of new zone districts and changes in zone district boundaries within the Central Business District and surrounding area including AH-2, B-3-R, C-R and C Zone Districts.

2. Other Planning Board business per the agenda.

The proposed master plan amendment and related exhibits are at the office of the Secretary of the Ridgewood Planning Board on the third floor of Village Hall, 131 North Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, New Jersey and are available for public inspection Monday-Friday between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. The amendment and exhibits are also posted as a courtesy on the Village’s website at www.ridgewoodnj.net.

All meetings of the Ridgewood Planning Board (i.e., official public meetings, work session meetings, pre-meeting assemblies and special meetings) are public meetings which are always open to members of the general public.
Financial Advisory Committee Meeting – April 7

Notice: The Financial Advisory Committee (FAC) will meet on Monday, April 7 instead of their standard of the 2nd Monday of the month. the meeting will take place at 7:30PM in the Garden Room, Village Hall.

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Leadership needed to establish goals

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Leadership needed to establish goals

MARCH 7, 2014
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

Leadership needed to establish goals
by Martin Walker

This letter was also sent to the Ridgewood Planning Board.

To the editor:

“Options ‘come down to economics’” (The Ridgewood News, Friday, Feb. 21, page A1) made good headlines, but Planning Board member objections to assisted living and parking facilities around building heights, location and aesthetics in North Walnut Street Redevelopment miss the enormity of issues affecting our community. Are we fiddling while Rome burns, or is there no leadership establishing goals and priorities?

The Organizational Development giant on leadership, Elliott Jacques, demonstrated that levels of institutional authority are correlated with the degrees of future time span awareness. Is no one in town governance articulating a vision for Ridgewood’s future? Doesn’t compromise require a shared goal in order to balance competing needs in the service of a greater good? Visionary leadership for Ridgewood requires a clearer articulation of where we are going.

The two perennial certainties, aging and taxes, provide the most stable variables around which to articulate any family community’s future. Every single one of us will age and the fact that tax revenue is tied to property values means our taxes will increase indefinitely. Visionary leadership must articulate what this means for our town.

Aging: Are we an aging-in community or an aging-out community? Should Ridgewood be required to provide a space for all of our lives, or only parts of it? Should our old age take place here, with easy access to all that we love, or should our elders go live somewhere else?

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/letter-leadership-needed-to-establish-goals-1.736297#sthash.nYJUpHp7.dpuf

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Assisted living may soon be allowable use in Ridgewood redevelopment area

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Assisted living may soon be allowable use in Ridgewood redevelopment area

MARCH 20, 2014    LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2014, 4:39 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER

The North Walnut Street Redevelopment Area, including the long-vacant Town Garage on Franklin Avenue and an adjoining parking lot, is a “dead zone” and the “back alley” of Ridgewood’s downtown, according to some Planning Board members. But Ridgewood may be one step closer to improving it.

The board on Tuesday approved Village Planner Blais Brancheau’s recommendations to update the North Walnut Street Redevelopment Plan.

The current plan was prepared in 2007, after the village formally adopted a resolution designating the area as “in need of redevelopment.” It includes several objectives for the area, including the establishment of a parking garage and retail space (which may be incorporated into the garage structure).

The Planning Board has now made new recommendations for the plan, partly in response to a developer’s proposal this past summer, which suggested that the area would be a good site for an assisted-living facility. That proposal piqued interest in the village, but the North Walnut Street Redevelopment Plan does not currently allow for an assisted-living use.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/towns/assisted-living-may-soon-be-allowable-use-in-ridgewood-redevelopment-area-1.746971#sthash.nMEpOgPb.dpuf

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Reader says We do not need pitchforks to say NO to over development

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Reader says We do not need pitchforks to say NO to over development

Much like the valley hospital situation, these people need an exception to the master plan. We do not need pitchforks to say NO. We do not even need a middle ground. These entities are all looking to build/expand so that they can make more money. Nothing personal, it’s just business.

What is in it for the town? More traffic, more kids in the schools and even less parking?

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