Washington DC, US Supreme Court rules states can collect sales tax for online purchases nationwide . Online shoppers could find costs going up after the Supreme Court did away Thursday with a decades-old precedent limiting the ability of states to collect sales tax on certain out-of-state Internet purchases.
The 5-4 ruling called the current rules “unsound and incorrect.” The Court shot down the “physical presence” required .Currently, businesses shipping a product to another state where it does not have a “physical presence” — a store, office or warehouse — are not forced to collect that state’s sales tax.
The high court said that rule is outdated, “When the day-to-day functions of marketing and distribution in the modern economy are considered, it is all the more evident that the physical presence rule is artificial in its entirety,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.
The current regulation “allows remote sellers to escape an obligation to remit a lawful state tax is unfair and unjust,” added Kennedy. “It is unfair and unjust to those competitors, both local and out of state, who must remit the tax; to the consumers who pay the tax; and to the states that seek fair enforcement of the sales tax.”
Ridgewood NJ, at Wednesday night council meeting the Village Council introduced Ordinance #3649 ,which is the Redevelopment Plan for Block 3809, Lots 12 & 13 – Hudson Street Parking Lot – Establishes a Redevelopment Plan for Block 3809, Lots 12 & 13, also known as the Hudson Street Parking Lot.
Timeline for Hudson Street Parking Garage:
June 5th Planning Board Curtesy Review
June 11th Open House for the Public 7-8
June 13th Public Hearing for adaption
June 14th Curtesy Historic Preservation Review
July 1st introduce bond ordnance
July 18th hearing for bond adaption for the bond for the Hudson Street Garage
August 8th award the contract to Epic Management to build the garage
Ridgewood Nj, Councilmen Ramon Hache updates us on progress for the Hudson Street Garage .On Wednesday, April 25, there was a discussion and presentation regarding the design and plan for the Hudson Street Garage. Residents had a chance to see a detailed presentation by Epic Management Inc. The design by Epic provides the best balance in terms of fit, value and functionality, while incorporating a design that fits within the existing lot.
Design highlights:
255 parking spaces
3 stories with open fourth level
All parking is head in, 90 degree, with no parallel parking
Stall dimensions: 8′-6″ x 18′-0″
All parking within the structure is on flat areas
The project cost is $10 million with a guaranteed maximum price of $11 million. It is worth noting that, before the negotiations, Epic had come in with quotes as high as $12.6 million for the project. I am very proud of the work Mayor Knudsen and I have done in negotiating. Vote on funding is expected to take place in six weeks.
Ridgewood NJ, once again we turn to Councilmen Ramon Hache for an update on the Hudson Street Garage . In his recent new letter Hache stated that , “Following presentations from the four developers that responded to the Village’s RFP, the Village Council selected two of the four developers to continue negotiations. The negotiations began in March, with the goal of selecting a final proposal that balances the best fit, value, functionality, and design.”
The current council once again made a very smart decision designating the existing Hudson Street lot as an area in need of redevelopment in 2017. This has allowed them the opportunity to negotiate directly with the construction companies, instead of simply accepting or rejecting the bids. An additional benefit of the redevelopment zone designation is that the Village does not have to post the usual deposit for the bond which, for this project, could have been up to $600,000. The results of the negotiations will be discussed in Closed Session on April 11.
Damiano, you still seem to think your only salvation is a garage. If it is so important for downtown businesses, when are you going to get the members together to force the landlords to contribute towards it? When are you going to contribute at least a wee bit? Quit firing at the people of the Village because most of us don’t want to build a garage. The businesses in Ridgewood basically all have the same problem. Landlords who think nothing better than milking you all dry. Take some responsibility for your own problems–make your employees walk a distance to work so your customers can park close enough to your business to make it worth their while to shop with you. The Village council and the residents of Ridgewood are not your Mommies-who would happily give you anything you wanted. You are grown up now. quit whining and at least make an effort to help yourselves!
Mr. Damiano’s article is more than a little self serving. Stores sometimes fail because people just don’t want to buy what the store is selling – not because they had to drive around the block to find a parking spot. Local businesses cannot expect taxpayers and local government to support their entrepreneurial ventures. It actually works the other way around – businesses should be contributing to the local tax base by selling things that people want to buy. Nobody said this was going to be easy Tony.
I’m sure if you ask any commercial real estate broker, they will tell you that if a particular store is not a ‘destination’ (anchor), the others rely upon ‘foot traffic’ generated by those ‘anchors’ for their success. For those of you newbies here, we lost many ‘anchors’ years ago, despite their size. McHughs, Sealfons, Winchells, Drapkins, Bobby Knapps, Purdues, and lets not forget Al and Harrys’. Whether due to pressure from malls, rising rents, or changing shopping habits, these were all stores that attracted my family members to come into town. None of them remain, so our shopping takes us to a mall, and I can’t recall the last time I went into town to purchase anything other than an occasional meal. Its a sad commentary on how a CBD has evolved into its present state. Years ago there were gas stations on every corner of Franklin Ave. The only one remaining is getty. We had mobil, Sinclair, arco, Phillips 66, Texaco, amaco, exxon, , and a few more that I forgot. (11 total). On Ridgewood ave there was a liquor store on almost every corner. Now we have banks, that I’m guessing will vacate upon lease renewals leaving more space. (its a lot easier to use a drive-in bank) It’s anyones guess what the future holds, but these small shops ‘treading water’ to remain in business are looking for taxpayers to subsidize their failing business models. Its no different than re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Fix/change/adapt or fail. A garage won’t bring shoppers to town if you don’t have a product they desire. Take a walk in town on recycling days. At least half the homes have cardboard amazon boxes waiting for pickup. Another HUGE factor.
credit to Tony Damiano for saying this. He wrote this original quote in his Facebook post
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
The majority of cars on the street are employees. I watch them feed the meters all day
Ridgewood NJ, Village Council candidate Janice Willett (https://www.willettforcouncil2018.com/issues )is advocating for the old oversized, too big for the foot print “Garagezilla “.
“Bottom line, we need to build a parking garage. But the question is where and how large. The current Council is looking at several proposals for a three-story garage on the Hudson Street lot—but the Council also imposed the restriction that the garage should fit strictly within the footprint of the lot and that it should hold about 240 cars. The existing surface lot has 75 spaces, so that’s only 165 incremental spaces. At a cost of roughly $10 million, or $60K per incremental space, they will be the most expensive new parking spaces on the Eastern seaboard (see p. 5.4-6 of this study). And we won’t really be adding any parking at all, because the Brogan and Ken Smith lots, which were formerly used by commuters and others, held about 160 cars.
We can do better. Let’s allow the garage to extend six feet beyond the footprint, as previous designs did, for a gain of at least 225 incremental spaces instead of just 165. And then let’s get the garage built.” https://www.willettforcouncil2018.com/issues
Montclair, 8-7 M-Sat, 1.00 per hour street, .75 per hour off street
Millburn, ?-6 M-Sat, .50 per hour
Summit, 8-6 M-Sat, .50 per hour
Westfield, 10-6 M-Sat, .50 per hour
Red Bank, 9-6 M-Sat, 1.00 per hour street, .50 per hour off street
Princeton, 8-7 M-Sat, 1.25 per hour
Morristown, complex plan – depends upon where in City
Ridgewood NJ, recently we have had a spat of emails and comments voicing concern over councilmen Ramon Hache changing his positions on key issues affecting the Village of Ridgewood . So the Ridgewood blog investigated if the criticism was valid or not and came to the conclusion is was not .
Ramon was against the oversized garage that was proposed by the “3 Amigos” . That garage over flowed the property line into the street a fact well hidden by the former administration.
Ridgewood NJ, Councilmen Ramon Hache gets us up to date on the Hudson garage. Hache says that , ” In addition to the interviews with developers for the Hudson Street Parking Garage on February 21, the Village Council reviewed and discussed the results of the Walker Feasibility Study at the Public Work Session on Wednesday, February 28.”
Walker Consultants were hired to perform a feasibility study which includes both the financial analysis and the parking allocation plan for the Hudson Street Garage. The study provides a planning-level analysis of net operating income potential for the parking system when the new garage is complete, including rate adjustments that will help maintain a parking utility that is self-supporting.
According to the councilmen , “Walker makes several assumptions, including a cost of $12 million and financing at 3%. At this time, even before negotiating, we are already seeing several viable options in the range of approximately $9.5 million to $11 million. Also, given our AAA credit rating, we should be able to finance at a rate lower than 3%.”
These are the highlights of Walker’s recommendations to pay for the garage:
Increase hourly meter rates from currently $0.50 to $0.75 in the second half of 2018; increase to $1.25 in 2020; increase to $1.50 in 2025.
Extend meter hours from currently 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Allocate 60% of the garage spaces to commuters and employees (monthly) and 40% to shoppers and diners (hourly).
Then the councilmen went on to discuss financing options, “I think we should explore short-term (3 years) interest-only financing in order to allow us to build a substantial cushion before bonding for 25 years. It would also help us smooth out future parking meter rate increases. I also suggest we allocate 75% (top three floors) to monthly passes and 25% (the first floor) to shoppers and diners. This will ensure that by early January each year, we would have locked in at least 75% of the projected garage revenue.”
Hache says, “The Hudson Garage would be part of the Parking Utility, which means it would be funded directly by revenues received through meter rates. That is why the Walker Feasibility Study only contemplates rate adjustments and extended meter hours, and not special assessments or tax increases.”
Hache concludes , “The Village Council will now begin negotiations with the garage developers with the goal of selecting a final proposal that balances the best fit, value, functionality, and design. Designating the existing Hudson Street lot as an area in need of redevelopment in 2017, has allowed us the opportunity to negotiate directly with the construction companies, instead of simply accepting or rejecting the bids. One company already reduced their original bid by over $1.37 million.”
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.
The key questions for garage or no garage need clear answers.
1. What is the real situation with supply and demand of parking in downtown Ridgewood? There has been an abundance of sound and fury about how there is no shortage of parking and just as much about how often there are no parking spaces for consumers. We seem to have nothing more than anecdotal “evidence”. How about actual analysis?
2. How is parking used right now? How much of the parking is used by patrons of Rwood businesses, how much by commuters (resident and non resident), how much by employees of Rwood businesses?
3. How are the current parking spots allocated? Does the current allocation of dedicated employee parking work or is much of that parking going unused, putting a squeeze on available parking for consumers?
4. Which businesses could reasonably be expected to succeed or even grow in downtown Rwood? Will the trend toward restaurants and away from shopping continue?
5. Would a garage end up serving non-residents more than residents? If a garage were built, how could/should the parking fees and rules assure that the main benefit of the parking would go to Rwood taxpayers?
6. Bottom line – Is a garage needed or should the village reconfigure the existing parking?
7. What are the costs and benefits of running the current parking fee system? How much, if any, money is generated? Would Rwood be better off with free downtown parking (a system used by many surrounding towns)?
In my 24 years in Rwood, the village has spent huge sums studying the parking garage situation, without ever fixing anything. The money spent on studies over that time probably exceed the cost of building a parking structure. What a waste.
