Major Commercial Development Project proposed for Broad Street
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Mountain View Auto now owns three adjoining properties on Broad Street (246-264 S. Broad St. —just north of Highwood Ave.). It is asking the Village to approve major zoning changes to allow it to triple the size of its auto body repair shop and to build a large, 2-story office building.
If approved, this would permanently change our residential neighborhood by allowing a major commercial expansion, with negative effects on traffic, the environment, and the very nature of our community.
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Currently, the property is zoned as 2-family residential, but the existing auto body shop is allowed because it was built before the 2-family zoning was put in place.
This proposed project is completely contrary to the Village’s recently passed Master Plan. The proposed shop would have 22 bays for cars being worked on and parking for 76 cars under repair.
Community
– This would be a major commercial expansion into a neighborhood that is zoned for 2-family residences.
– Multiple churches and schools are located within blocks of the site.
– Mountain View is seeking 9 major variances in addition to its requested zoning changes (affecting setbacks on all sides, height, parking spaces, etc).
– The buildings would cover 32% of the lot and abut existing multi-family residences. – Standing 32-feet tall, the proposed two-story building would tower over the neighborhood. – Landscaping will not shield the neighborhood.
– There are no apparent benefits to the neighborhood.
Traffic
– The expansion would cause a major increase in traffic on Broad Street and intersecting streets. – There would be significantly more tow trucks bringing in damaged vehicles, more customers dropping o and picking up vehicles, more delivery trucks stopping regularly, and cars being dropped o at night on already busy, two-lane Broad Street.
– Likely use of Highwood Avenue for customer and employee parking, as the site does not have sucient parking spaces.
– Increased employee traffic.
– A now-dangerous intersection at Highwood & Broad will endanger the safety of neighborhood children traveling to Orchard or Friends Nursery School.
Environmental
– Increased noise and air pollution from additional car and truck traffic, air pollution from paints and chemicals used inside the shop.
– Possible pollution from runoff of gas/oil/chemicals or substances not currently identified as dangerous. (PROA and PFOS).
– Multi-family homes are close to the property lines on both sides of the property.
The complete zoning application is available on the Ridgewood Village website at: https://tinyurl.com/kzajz9br .
That’s a lot of variances, so maybe reduce the number of variances requested BUT this is a commercial mixed use neighborhood. Yes people live in the area but it’s not a typical neighborhood.
“Typical neighborhood?” Hmm. Code for mostly white?
I feel sorry for you.
You see everything as Racist.
What a sad life that must be.
“Yes people live in the area but it’s not a typical neighborhood.” Sounds Racist to me . Clearly your not from that neighborhood.
‘
You see Racism in EVERYTHING.
Try to see Anti-Semitisim as well… it’s trending now.
At first glance, appears to be large. But let’s watch and wait for the presentation. Often the initial is an opening position, then reduced in scale to satisfy the town – right down to their original expectations.
We’re stupid (or corrupt) enough to approve it.
Some of us thought they were gonna put more housing in there
More traffic. More tow trucks 24hr. but it not a typical neighborhood.. You bunch of NIMBY’s
The reason the ordinance was changed was because of the late Rev. Johson who fought for the 2 family rezoning. He was concerned that chimerical sprawl would take over and thus put the neighborhood in jeopardy. House are considerably cheaper in that area which make them prime property’s for developers. Rev. Johson was a visionary. If he was only here now to see this attack on his neighborhood. It would not fly.
Residents of S. Broad and surrounding neighborhood don’t let this happen. Go to the meeting. You have a right to keep your neighborhood a neighborhood.
John “Often the initial is an opening position, then reduced in scale to satisfy the town – right down to their original expectations.: That arer is Zoned 2 family what does reducing the scale have to do with anything.
I’m just wondering about campaign contribution.
Something is wrong here. Who would submit such a large design knowing the current laws unless they had the inside track. Think about it.
This development is inappropriate and too large for this minority community area, listed on NJDEP website as such. 22 bays? and 70 plus cars on the lot? This is not a small business concern but a mega building. There is plenty of space on Route 17 , maybe the old Kmart area, that can accommodate the largesse of a mega autobody shop. Churches, school, rental apartment and residential homes are all in this vicinity and even now South Broad Street can barely handle the darting fast cars going from Ridgewood Avenue to Ackerman. This is not warranted here with 9 variances. Not to mention the contamination within the present soils, stormwater runoff issues and noise and traffic congestion.
The Village has a responsibility to have the big picture here and understand a long existing neighborhood where lower income and minorities are able to live.
While the present body shop is there for many years, it is set back and does not have the capacity that is proposed and would clearly impact the area detrimentally. One wonders who profits from such endeavors here in the Village. Certainly not local residents or even businesses.
We have enough garbage in Paramus so we don’t need a large auto body shop at the old Kmart location. There are residential properties in that area too. Ridgewood should fight the expansion of the auto body shop to preserve the integrity of the existing neighborhood as much as possible. But don’t push this problem onto a neighboring town like Washington Twp tried to do with the old Charlie Brown location on Linwood.
Sorry but if Paramus will allow CVS and 7-11 at the corner of E Ridgewood and Paramus Road, you can hardly argue with commercial development OF ANY KIND at the K-Mart site.
Paramus fired the first shot when they okayed CVS and 7-11 literally a few feet away from the border of Ridgewood. They didn’t give a rat’s behind about the neighbors in THAT Paramus neighborhood, the users of the Duck Pond, the neighbors in Ridgewood.
Paramus is already a hole and they want to take Ridgewood down with them.
I don’t think they should put a CVS or any other commercial entity on that Paramus Rd property. Build one or two single family homes there instead.
Does anyone know how many cars were on the lot previously and what it looked like?
Those properties and land have been filthy and disgusting for an extremely long time. Does that probably need to be cleaned up? Yes, now what they build there is something else.
This is not rt17, this is a big deal to build something like this. Come on.that’s a dirty smell that comes out of the exhaust fans. Has anyone seen all the garbage on the cliff side. Build condos , it’s clean
What they have there now is an eye sore. Before the new owners there were bumpers, cars and other debris all over. They seemed to have tried to clean it up with what they have. We’ve already turned down a proposed assisted living. This seems to clean up an area and give tax dollars without adding to the stress of required services. With the noise of the train what developer would build homes there and risk not selling them.
It is amazing that people do not like change but yet they don’t even know what was previously existing. This so-called expansion is only consolidating the pre-existing mess to into one brand new facility that enhances the neighborhood. This property previously looked like a junkyard storage of over 125 cars, tow trucks, parts, garbage, single, parking, Rental truck, parking, a mechanical shop, all of which were used by residence of Ridgewood. feel free to look at the plans on how it will improve the area and consider that this is not changing the use that is already existing but improving it and not adding to any burden on Township education, etc. And keep in mind this facility can continue as it looks. Or have a new improved building that blends in with the landscape of Ridgewood thank you.
Good morning I didn’t realize there was a Ridgewood blog. I realize that no one likes change but in reality we are not changing anything we are taking something that is old, worn out and cleaning up the area. This property was used for two body shops, one mechanical shop, the old Ridgewood taxi Had over 125 junk cars stored there was used for individual storage of equipment trucks, cars, etc. there was garbage everywhere I don’t know how anyone can comment on the proposed project when I guess they’re not familiar with what was there for the last 50 years , what is proposed as a building that will blend in with the landscape of Ridgewood as all of you are we as well are very community minded, and are very respectful of that The use of this property will be completely used for one autobody facility which will limit the transient traffic of all those rental units and trucks and equipment in and out of the yard. It will only be one business not three or four we feel this would be an asset to the community because we are not changing the use. It does not add to the burden of Township, utilities, education, etc. and one more important thing is that this property does back the railroad, which is excessively noisy by itself. Therefore it would be questionable as to the type of housing that would be desirable for this lot I do believe is possibly is multi family housing which again would definitely add traffic, education and cost to the township. Thank you.