Ridgewood Planning Board sends changes to redevelopment plan to council
MAY 9, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, MAY 9, 2014, 12:31 AM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
A Planning Board discussion elicited further comments on pending amendments to the redevelopment plan for the village-owned section at the corner of North Walnut Street and Franklin Avenue.
The comments will be sent to the Ridgewood Council for review, according to Village Planner Blais Brancheau.
“We’re just going to send them a letter,” Brancheau said. “If the council reads the comments and says, ‘Let’s change it,’ they could.”
The council has already discussed amendments to a previous redevelopment plan, drafted by Brancheau with the help of the Planning Board. A second reading is expected at a council meeting on May 14.
The Planning Board approved its amended plan for council introduction in March. Those amendments include some added allowable uses, including an assisted-living facility, which could be incorporated into a parking garage structure. Allowing this use in the plan would not guarantee that an assisted-living facility would be built at that location. It would, however, allow the village to consider any assisted-living developers’ proposals that might come in, should the village adopt the amendments and draft a request for proposal (RFP).
Assisted living has been proposed by several developers for that location, ever since a presentation on a facility, with ground floor retail, was made last June to the council by Kensington Senior Development. The firm also offered to build a parking garage nearby.
The original redevelopment plan was created in 2007, following a village resolution labeling the area “in need of redevelopment.” The plan includes several objectives for the redevelopment. Primarily, the village is seeking to establish a parking garage, and secondarily, it is looking to encourage more retail in that location (which may be incorporated into the garage structure at street level).
An RFP was drafted for that plan, but the council rejected every consequent proposal, prompting the need for a reinvigorated look at the plan.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/changessent-to-council-1.1012667#sthash.i6S1DHNx.dpuf
