Ridgewood needs to progress with the times
Friday, February 7, 2014
The Ridgewood News
Ridgewood needs to progress with time
by Edward Martin Walker
The following letter was also sent to the Ridgewood Planning Board.
To the editor:
Opinions on housing density are stuck in an either/or duality that lacks a vision for sustaining our quality of village life. We need a realistic growth vision from village leaders and a perspective shift by opponents in order to sustain the very things we all value so dearly. Ridgewood cannot “just stay the same.” Time waits for no one.
Our Planning Board should alter the Master Plan to foster equal living opportunities to both our elders and to our children, starting by limiting all higher density residential building to a 55-and-over demographic. The reasons for doing this are economic, ethical and moral.
Economic reasons: The single greatest future threat to any family’s life in Ridgewood is that it will be unaffordable to grown children and for retirement. This threat lessens by shifting the ratio of taxpayers to tax consumers (school-age children) in the direction of reduced individual tax burdens, while increasing business activities through economic growth. The only way to do this without burdening our schools is by limiting higher density residential to a 55-and-over demographic. We must also promote assisted-living facilities in the CBD, which will increase revenues with minimal utilization of town services, while increasing business spending by those providing goods and services. In addition, our master plan must create ways for older residents to age in place by sharing residences, or renting to other adults. Finally, in-law apartments and other ways to keep families together must be part of a wider vision for Ridgewood to sustain itself as a multi-age family community versus becoming simply a commodity primarily servicing school-age children and the enhancement of property values so as to facilitate relocation elsewhere once children graduate from high school. Anyone unaware of this dilemma is simply not paying attention.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/244165251_Letter__Ridgewood_needs_to_progress_with_the_times.html#sthash.84qHE4ZG.dpu
ARROGANCE : an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions.
I really have to laugh at people who think that everyone shares their “vision” and what constitutes a “dilemma”.
Who said ” Progress is good if its going in the right direction”
Dementia as an alternative description of the writer?
We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
C. S. Lewis
RECALL RECALL RECALL RECALL RECALL RECALL RECALL RECALL RECALL RECALL RECALL RECALL
We need parking, not more residents and cars
“In case of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the
General Government, being chosen by the people, a change by the
people would be the constitutional remedy.” –Thomas Jefferson:
Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
George Bernard Shaw
Our Council. “There they are. See no evil, hear no evil, and…evil.” —Bob Dole
Let’s take affordability advice from someone that paid $1,046,500 for their house.
The problem with Ridgewood is SPENDING, just like the problem with New Jersey is SPENDING, just like the problem with the United States is SPENDING.
Looks to me like SPENDING will slow down when they run out of other peoples money to spend.
What the heck?
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”
― W.C. Fields