file photo Boyd Loving
Reader says The Village Council and the Planning Board need to step up and make decisions that are in the best interest of a vibrant and healthy village.
The Citizens For a Better Ridgewood (CBR) website states that the group:
-Favors economic growth for our downtown
-Favors new housing that is appropriate in scale
-Favors new housing designated for empty nesters and special needs residents, where there is an established need
-Favors new parking solutions that support commerce
-Favors more open space and athletic fields for our youth sports
That all sounds good. But, their public actions suggest different agendas, at least for some of the founders. Specifically, they have opposed ALL new multi-family housing projects in Ridgewood, regardless of “scale”. Clearly, we don’t need all three of the proposed developments in town. But, it is also clear that one or two of the proposed housing projects would benefit economic growth in the CBD and would help advance the parking solution in town. It is also clear that the most desirable projects would be those that are moderate in overall size, with high-end units that cater to young professional couples or empty nesters, who wish to downsize. Such projects would have less impact on our infrastructure and schools than when families with children move into existing homes in Ridgewood as empty nesters leave town each year, when their children graduate from RHS.
So, why doesn’t the CBR come out and publicly endorse one of the proposed projects? Or, if they support a specific project, but would like to see minor modifications, why don’t they tell us which project and what modifications they recommend?
The reason is that they don’t really want ANY new multi-family housing! Why? Two reasons… which the Ridgewood News has been remiss in reporting and the CBR has failed to disclose.
1) Amy Bourque is one of the founders of the CBR and is its most vocal advocate. Her family is the long-standing owner an existing multi-family housing development that would be most adversely impacted by ANY new multi-family housing in Ridgewood. This is a major conflict of interest that she should have disclosed long ago. Her failure to do so openly raises serious questions about her motivations.
2) Several CBR supporters have repeatedly and publicly expressed concern that new multi-family housing will attract more foreign families to Ridgewood, who wish to take advantage of our school system for a few years, potentially with an inappropriate number of family members or more than one family in a single unit. This concern was clearly expressed at a recent public meeting. However, the press inexplicably glossed over the comment.
The debate over multi-family housing projects has gone on for far too long in Ridgewood. We need SOMETHING. The Village Council and the Planning Board need to step up and make decisions that are in the best interest of a vibrant and healthy village. Perhaps a little honesty from those who have been stalling the debate out would help residents understand the CBR’s real motivations and allow the Village to move forward.
I must say watching the Council meeting last night and the Council seemed to be civil to all speakers. I did notice the VM brushing off concerns of some speakers.
The information about Ms. Boutique is interesting, but hardly damning.
The inability or unwillingness of the press to highlight certain public comments made by CBR supporters similarly does not necessarily cry out for federal investigation.
By contrast, the use of the overbroad term “multi-family housing” by the author of the original post suggests that he/she is being disingenuous. The term covers too many different types of dwelling structures to be of any great value in this debate. It covers two-family houses, upstairs-downstairs, etc., all the way up to and including public housing towers and large modern apartment buildings. To suggest someone should not be heard to object to plans to build huge apartment buildings because of family ownership of something other than single-family detached housing seems unnecessarily harsh and exclusive.
This post — which I assume was written by or at the behest of a developer — completely ignores the fact that the properties at issue currently are zoned for multi-family. Just not the obscene density sought by the developers. The post is nothing more than an eloquent plea for a government handout in favor of the developer.
Yes # 3 I believe that the Brogan property is zone for four stories. If they stick to that it would have been built along time ago.
Duh # 3
The “government” handout is done…your a little late in the favor department.
Get your matching Louis Vuitton luggage out because yer outta here….that is unless your getting one of the 400 + new apartments that are going to be built. And stop saying Village….how many times do I have to tell you that died years ago…….