January 7,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, There were too many discussions focused on needing a garage or not. I voted no, but it passed, let’s build a nice one. We need to be talking about what it looks like and how we pay for it. The only design offered to date is ugly, doesn’t fit the lot, and the council is in a rush to build it. We don’t really know how it gets paid for. The traffic impact is going to be huge. The garage is going to be filled with train commuters every day- the village has been clear about that. The one traffic study (done over 4 hours on one day) says we need to know more about overall traffic impact. The village has a poor record dealing with traffic design. This is a traffic disaster waiting to happen.
Judging by comments to the council and online discussions, too many voters did not educate themselves ahead of the vote. A lot of buyer’s remorse and people who “assumed”. There were some amazing speakers who clearly and smartly got to the issue and were ready to dive into to the details the council wishes to avoid. There were also uninformed garage supporters who thought the architect’s renderings were fakes made by opponents of the garage. Quite the indictment when supporters of the garage have no idea what it looks like and even they think it can’t possibly “look like THAT”.
It is now crystal clear that 3 council members, led by the village manager and mayor, were not forthcoming about their intentions ahead of the vote. They promised a conversation about design and then offered one photo ahead of the vote and no options on design. The only design option was a meaningless 10′ difference. The village seems to revel in ignoring codes and statutes created to preserve what everyone loves about the village. The village should set the standard and go beyond what is required. This manager and 3 of the council now have a demonstrable record of doing the opposite. Let’s hope the promise of a new design to be created is true.