If we don’t get SOME form of parking garage, SOME housing on the vacant sites and help prop up the high street merchants you DO know what happens next, right? The main drag gets rezoned for mixed use, a la Bogota and Closter, and our commuter town (which it is, look at the town seal) has MORE rental units developed by OUTSIDERS and the usual mix of chain stores.. the combo of reasonable housing proposals and some form of business/commuter parking will give the town a boost. I think if the current housing proposals can be negotiated further, you get some desperately needed new blood in. And the tides lift everything up as well as down.
We don’t use the parking we have, the studies showed only 68% of public spots taken on weekend nights. Stop the waste at Hudson, repave and restripe the lot which adds dozens more spots. The 4 apartment complexes are a done deal, signed and sealed. There are no major negotiable items. Paul, Gwen, Al, and Roberta made sure to give Saraceno far more than he and the other developers could have dreamed of.
Better to have chain stores!! than to be constantly pushed and prodded to shop the current stores and threatened if we dont with high taxes. I grew up UNCONSCIOUS of stores. Never gave them a thought except when I needed sompin. And then went to a chain, quality great, price great. Now I am told to have Ridgewood CBD store welfare on my brain. NEVER.
And no one in forty years of living here ever shit bothered me about where I shopped. All of a sudden in past few years that is all I hear about in town meetings with town council talkin constantly about the storeowners and their welfare, and tryin to coax me to shop in town, lure me with discount card. Ain’t goin work. BRING ON THE CHAINS AND MIXED TOWN REAL ESTATE and shut up. I will not be CHAINED to local stores, I want CHAIN CHAIN CHAIN…..I AM SINGIN AND DANCIN NOW. chain chain chain.
Also and most importantly I am NOT afraid of OUTSIDERS. I am afraid of Vagianos, Saraceno, that crabby guy who owns the knick knack paddy wack store, Mango Jam, Tony somthing. And other INSIDERS.
I don’t understand why people are so against a parking garage and revitalizing our down town and content with the dilapidated eye sores that sit around unused. Other towns have done such a great job with redevelopment. Look what Montclair is working on with a new art district and we can’t pass or get parking right.
Change is going to happen and if you fight every idea you are going to end up with the worst case scenario for our town. Just work together and stop the name calling malicious dialogue.
We need some of the lots repaved. That will help.
If you think this town doesn’t need more parking capacity for peak periods then you need to pry yourself away from Fox News long enough to actually socialize in town at those times, or you’re that one “reader” we’ll nickname Ann-of-the-hosed-up-water-bill that likes to point out that there’s always spots on Cottage Place “if you only walk a few blocks.” Mathematics allows that spaces are only 68% used on weekend nights and at the same time, there’s not nearly enough capacity at peak demand times. And NONE of those studies show what is possible if word got out that there was actually parking in Ridgewood! The fact remains that 1,200 people voted against paying for a garage they didn’t like two months after 3,600 people voted to actually solve a 40+ year old problem. Every person on that council said they were for “the right garage” when they were running for election. Where is it? I’ve seen here that people are saying this is a do-nothing council. Hard to argue the other side of that when there’s been absolutely no progress on the single defining issue of their election.
9:39 Nice try..We need to pave then reline the existing surface Lots,including Hudson.Then sue the town garage for the true hazard it represents.
How does anyone that has half a brain think that we as Village tax payers should pay for a parking garage in order to prop up the various trinket stores or shops in this town? Online shopping is not going away and will only get bigger. The argument that we need a garage to accommodate shoppers is absolutely incredible. If shop owners in this town think that slumping sales are due to lack of parking near their stores and not due to Amazon and other related online outlets, they are in denial. We all need to come to the realization that the retail landscape is forever changed, by building a garage, we are not going to stop or slow the inevitable outcome. If stores have to close, as unfortunate as that is, it’s reality….hopefully, fixed costs such as rent going down etc will help alleviate the pain of slower sales, but don’t be fooled…there is less foot traffic for retail and it’s only getting worse. I’ve sat here and read all the arguments for a garage, all claiming that no ones coming to Ridgewood to shop because of lack of parking….really? Are we that gullible to believe that? Less people are coming to this village because they can sit at home, go online and get whatever they order in a day or two…FACT.
12:09 Every sentence of your post seethes with negativity and incendiary vitriol. It’s exactly what;s throwing wrenches into improving the dialogue in town and you sound as though you are enjoying yourself as you are saying it. If you were listening to the Counciil meeting this week the garage is very much still on the table. It will just be one that doesn’t jut out into the street.
And don’t talk about Anne.
12:09 – As you hide behind your snotty commentary with anonymous posting, at least Anne gets up and shows her face and states her opinion politely. I happen to agree with her a thousand percent. We do not need that damn garage. And there are many of us who think so. But as was pointed out, the garage is going forward so you will get what you want. Happy now?
The garage will be happening, no doubt about it. It will be a financial disaster and a complete eyesore. It will appease the merchants and some commuters, I guess. But it will be the mess that keeps on costing every single homeowner. Mark my words.
So many people work from home nowdays, 1, 2, or more days a week – these people are not driving in to town to park for the day. NJ Transit says their ridership is at an all time low. So many people shop online instead of at brick and mortar. People take uber so they can have a few drinks with dinner and not have to drive home. We do not need more parking, believe me.
ridership at an all time low????
7:25 the fact that you are posting here at 7:25 on a Saturday night actually proves a point someone made earlier. If you were looking for parking at 7:25 there would be no doubt in your mind that we need more parking capacity. But no, sadly, you’re home. Typing. Transference?
12:09 the single defining issue of the election was not the garage – it was to get rid of the toxic trio of Albert-Paul-Gwenn. Even though they weren’t running, they had their minions running. And buckle your seatbelts, because “they” are working hard to get two new people in to do their bidding. Voigt is chomping at the bit to get some Aronsohn cronies on the dais with him. It could happen. They lost before, and they did not like it.
The way I see it 12:09s comment wasn’t vitriol it was math. The parts that weren’t math were talking about a council that that said “We’ll build the right garage for you if you vote for us.” Does anyone see a garage? I don’t even see a hole in the ground where there might be a garage someday. In fact, we don’t even have plans for the holes in the ground we need for a garage someday. Accountability is not vitriolic and facts have no agenda. Maybe I’m wrong and we’ve actually built a garage but I’m pretty sure we didn’t because I was at Cottage Place tonight at 7:00 and I couldn’t find a spot to park in even if I was willing to “just walk a few blocks.” Shall we do some more parking engineering by busy-body anecdote or should we actually listen to the professionals we hire again and again and again and again?
“7:25 the fact that you are posting here at 7:25 on a Saturday night actually proves a point someone made earlier. If you were looking for parking at 7:25 there would be no doubt in your mind that we need more parking capacity. But no, sadly, you’re home. Typing. Transference?”
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10:21 – have you heard of a new invention called “cell phones”? Do you know how “data plans” work?
It is a “mobile” device… works in cars and restaurants….
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Does The garage allows developers to count th parking spaces there as required parking for the new developments? Since we are screwed by former council approvals the only way to cover the added costs of these new units is to charge ongoing annual “impact fees” for every unit above the usual permitted density. If 50 units are built where 25 is the usual permissible then the additional should bee charged for each bedroom multiplied by the cost of annual student expenditure . So if It costs $20,000 per year per student in the BOE budget,, and a unit has 2 bedrooms,then an annual impact fee of $40,0000 plus assessed real estate taxes. So 25 extra units have 50 extra bedroom require $1,000,0000 annual fees to the village.
2:30 (nice!) You can’t type 28 words without grammar mistakes and you expect us to believe that 7:25 typed 233 words perfectly on a cell phone while driving around town or in front of friends while at dinner? I hope you slept it off cause that was some good stuff you had there.
12:09 you lost your audience when you started name calling and insulting a resident for having an opinion. After that, all any one read translated to you being a jerk.
10:21….how does posting at 7pm on a Saturday negate any of the points made above? Does one have to be in town every night to have an opinion on the parking needs of this town? It’s this type of response that makes the argument for a garage so painful. A very small minority think that only those that own shops or restaurants in this town have the expertise to judge what the actual parking needs are in this village. Transference…now that’s funny. I guess your over active social calendar, which allows you to be in town every night makes you the preeminent authority on the traffic and parking issues that we may or may not face. Given we’re going on the time stamps of posts now, should we assume that you were just back from bellying up to the bar at Park West, monitoring the traffic flow through the window as you lectured the other patrons on how much better this Village would be if we had a parking garage? Maybe ask how many of your drinking buddies would use that garage if they had to walk more then a block to and from, my guess would be that none of them would….
One thing the Council has never responded to: Will a portion of this garage be available to the builders so they can supplement their legal lack of parking by having Ridgewood residents pay to help them out? It “may’ be used by commuters who can’t find parking on the streets. The stores and restaurants in town will continue to have their employees park directly in front of their businesses. Paul will still have his reserved “no parking” space in front of his wall. Who do you actually expect to use this space? Probably not shoppers or diners. And what about the Sunday/other Mt. Carmel uses of the lot that will be covered by the garage? Are we going to be expected to “pay for parking” that was formally free? And, to add insult to injury, the parking meters’ rates will be increased and the hours extended. Who wants that? Unless you can at least force the town’s various commercial employees to use it, who else will?
Village of Ridgewood is overrated. Time to move out time to shop somewhere else and go to another town and eat,
9:42 – apparently you have not used or been around people who use cell phones… preteens can easily belt out thousands of words while “driving around town (riding in a car) or in front of friends while at dinner”.
I’m sure 7:25 is perfectly capable of typing 233 words while doing the same regardless of his age and/or technical capability.
Get out of the 1950s and join the rest of us in the new century…
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BTW, insulting me does not advance your argument, especially when the facts are in my favor.
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12:42 – whoever you are, I think I love you. And let’s hope that Mr. or Ms. 10:21 took an Uber instead of driving drunk.
I was in town last night. Arrived at 7:30 PM. Parked in Cottage Lot. There must have been twenty empty spots. I went to a movie and then had coffee. Then I walked back to my car. Easy Peasy.
Omg…add some stores to town that we may want to go to and use uber. Very easy!!!!
Someone told me that because of the location of the new garage and the chocolate shop right across the street we can expect an immediate influx of GERMANS. Is this true? You know what happens when GERMANS find a chocolate shop…Verruckte Leute !
The horror…The horror…The horror…