the Village agenda is now the CRR, Friends of Schedler and CBR agenda. It’s great you turned out the votes for a grassroots victory, but Ridgewood is much bigger than just your special interests. I fear we’ve gone from a Village agenda dominated by developers to one dominated by anti-development special interests. There has to be some middle ground or property value increases will continue to lag those seen in other surrounding municipalities like Glen Rock and Tenafly. We cannot just be complacent about all of the eyesores across the Village, we need renewal.
Things will fall into place as our ship is righted. I suspect that if there has been any real estate price depression, it has been entirely due to the outlandish approvals of gigantic garages, apartment projects and the Valley Hopsital’s 1700 car garage on the corner of Linwood avenue. If you were a young couple thinking about moving into town with all this nonsense going on, what would you think? An empty car lot isn’t going to turn anyone off, an ugly 5 story parking garage next to the church you are thinking of joining will lead to second thoughts about moving here or one of our neighboring towns.
Which brings up an excellent question. Why have the neighboring towns resisted the rush to overbuild that our current council was so dedicated to pursuing?
Those property owners could have renewed anytime…they were just waiting for a special deal and opportunity to make the most money possible. Do you think they are so altruistic as to be “renewing” now to help your property value?
Repeal 3066 and get on with the long overdue (and much needed) redevelopment of the CBD…. And if Valley can come up with a reasonable plan to renew on their existing footprint then they have every right to proceed.
Hopefully Hache and Voigt – who won the most votes – will have a broader agenda than just Schedler, anti-Valley, and police hiring…
We need smart, well-planned renewal that is carefully organized to benefit the village and residents overall, not developers, business owners, or political cronies, done in a methodical way that will not rip up the town and make traffic insufferable for years or decades.
We may or may not need a parking garage downtown, but if so, little Hudson St. is not the place for it. Should be central.
Vote no to the $11,500,000 bond referendum on June 21!
Extreme response to one sided council.
All vested interests will not get what they want. There will be compromises, that’s the only way things work. We can’t dig in our heals on every issue. There are 5 individuals on council who represent us. It is a vast improvement over the council that had three members voting at the direction of one person.
We need to focus on core services, leave all the special interest requests out. No more tax increases.
Anti-Development? What Kool-Aid are you drinking. If you changed your thought properly to Over-Development, then you’d be 100% correct. Develop reasonable housing at 18-24 units, Valley can renew in Ridgewood with minor variances (not doubling in size-Ludacris). Parking garage, should be 2 levels on Hudson, then another 2 level garage at another location (Ken Smith, behind BOE building, or Hillman? Shoving overdevelopment down our throats is the reason all these are on hold. We need logical decision making and that’s what our new council will bring. Can someone please remove that illegal wall in front of the Greek Restaurant! Can anyone explain who and why this was allowed?
11.20 is 100 percent Correct.VOTE NO TO GARAGE REFERENDUM
JUNE 21 2016.Our voices should be just as strong on June 21 as there was last May Election Day .change takes work Ridgewood..it’s not Summer yet.,keep moving ahead Ridgewood..it Sparta JUNE 21 VOTE
4.51 it’s also Greek to Me..ronnie regan said..Tear Down This WALL. !!!!!
Shot heard all around the World,
4.51. Very well said. A big NO to the mister garage.
Monster
But 8:00 pm, Mr. Trump wants to build a new one that’s even bigger.
Yes but Trump’s wall will have a beautiful door for legal immigrants…
Haven’t seen any gigantic garages, apartment projects, or Valley Hopsital’s 1700 car garage on the corner of Linwood avenue built as yet, so not sure how exactly they’ve been holding back property values 9:27?
the fact that the departing mayor and his crew were looking to turn Ridgewood into Bayonne
What is CRR, CBR, Friends of Graydon, and Friends of Schedler stance on lack of new contracts with police and teachers? They control the Village agenda given every single one of our next five Council members took campaign money from people in the leadership and membership of these special interests, so all five are beholden in some respects to these special interest groups. Where do they stand on property taxes, challenging Valley’s “not-for-profit” status, repealing ordinance 3066 so we can finally get on with renewal of our declining CBD, etc? if this blog really is bringing a free-market, laissez faire point of view, why isn’t it questioning the intentions of the special interests as much as it questioned the intentions of the developers? We now have the exact opposite extreme of an over development dominated Council? We now have a Council dominated by single issue, special interest groups that funded their campaigns with multiple conflicts of interest, i.e. Schedler and Valley. Let’s not swing to the other extreme.
6.16. Come up for air ..they have not been sworn in yet…perhaps some payback knives being grinded on the good for the gander wheels.suggest those positions be released within 60 days if possible from turnover of the government. Limiting the damage wrought and setting up a clear organization and priority vision would be what many residents see as priorities in first quarter year,Good ridence to all but MIke who stood for the residents in many storms,
Noting 11.20 is so right
We start to Right the village ship by a fir-
Vote no to the $11,500,000 bond referendum on June 21!
Putting a stop to what was going on was the message that needed to be sent, and it was. You did not elect dumb people, they certainly know what needs to be done. To say that things have now swung to a feeling of “anti-development ” is a stretch.
The new Mayor and Council are on notice. The prior administration raised the bar with their pandering to special interest groups and a lot is expected from them. This is not going to be a love fest, the citizens have called upon you to deliver. No more double speak, say what you think and accomplish what you were elected to do. Topics to be explored include the make of the planning board, the tenure of the Village Manager and Gail Price. Make a decision on the Hudson Street Garage (it’s not a deck) establish multi-family density limits and stick to them. The honeymoon is over, get to work.