Ridgewood planners ready for residents’ review of proposed developments
Thursday September 26, 2013, 3:10 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Planning Board members are hopeful that a draft of the master plan amendment allowing high-density, multi-family housing in downtown Ridgewood will be ready for review in October. Their thinking, shared by several board members Monday night, is to give residents the opportunity to formally address the controversial proposal as soon as possible.
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Village Planner Blais Brancheau will present next month a draft of a master plan amendment to allow multi-family housing in the Central Business District.
Four separate developers are seeking changes to the village’s master plan that would fundamentally permit the construction of luxury-style apartment complexes in and around the Central Business District (CBD). That specific type of development is not allowed under the provisions of the current master plan.
During recent meetings, the Planning Board has discussed various criteria to “build parameters” for the proposed master plan amendment, which would call for the creation of a new zone in the CBD. A subcommittee of the board was specifically tasked with determining recommended variables, such as housing density and building heights. The subcommittee presented its findings last week.
As for all this talk about these new projects attracting only professionals without children…I used to live in the apartments on Oak Street. They were all one and two bedroom — and nearly every apartment had two or more kids.
Are the developers still standing by their estimate that the proposed apartments at the Ken Smith site will only add 6 children to the school system? Are they still standing by their assertion that traffic in the CBD will IMPROVE after the complex is built? Just curious.
One needs only to open the RHS phone directory to realize that many of the apartments in town are occupied by multi-children households.
Unless the Mayor and PB comments were taken out of context, it would appear that that the decision has been made and it is just a matter of ensuring that the façade blends with the rest of the neighborhood. Why bother with the hearings?