Reader asks whats up with all the Ridgewood Development ?

file photo by Boyd Loving

I hope that since Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Grewal is a neighbor (from Glen Rock), he can see (hear about) the ‘development’ push happening in Ridgewood and try to get to bottom of it.

1. Why is the push for Hudson Street lot and going to BCIA for the money when our council is willing to bond for money for other more appropriate lots. Whats the hidden agenda with Hudson St lot, which is not large enough for self parking garage of 5 stories as per their own walker report? Why is he willing to encroach on to the street for this location? If we can pay 15 million for a garage, we can pay 1M to cleanup the north walnut site. There must be some hidden reason for the push to this location so hard. Lets hope this new prosecutor sees this.

2. Why is there so much push for the multi family housing in the town. Why are two lots that are in two different corners of CDB are being zoned in the same zone? They keep attaching it to ‘COA obligation’ in their arguments, but these are luxury apartments, not affordable units. They keep attaching it to ‘senior living’, but these are not limited to 55 and over. What’s the reason for this push, along with the push for the parking garage.

3. Why is the village administration always releasing information after the fact, i.e. maser report of Oct 15th, was released on Dec 30th, schedler grant application’s open public hearing happened after the application was already submitted with the checkbox stating ‘yes’ to the meeting, healthbarn’s lease was signed and then the public hearing happened, which was supposed to happen before the change of use, friends of schedler house were told that cannnot match the money, while it was accepted from the RBSA.Open Space funding requests were submitted saying ‘no historical property on the site’, while our own village’s HPC submitted the details to the village administration that the Schedler house is historic and must be preserved.

4. OPRA requests are now not affordable in the town. They have now (since last 2-3 months) started charging hundreds of dollars for each OPRA request because they don’t want residents to questions all these things happening at the same time with unprecedented push, without satisfactory answers from the council and administration. The Mayor uses his personal email account for most emails and some of them use their cell phones (text) to communicate, even when they are sitting at the public meetings.

There cannot be smoke without fire. If so many residents are going to these council meetings and they are frequently going to 1-2AM with residents speaking for 6-7 hours, there must be something wrong going on. Hopefully this new prosecutor will look at this and get to the bottom of this, which we the normal residents can’t do without access to all the data.