Ridgewood zoning amendment goes to public hearing on Dec. 5.
Friday, October 18, 2013
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
The Record
RIDGEWOOD — The Planning Board decided this week to hold the first public hearing on a proposed amendment to the master plan permitting high-density, multifamily housing complexes downtown in early December.
Following a final review of a draft amendment to the master plan at its Nov. 5 meeting, the Planning Board will accept public comment on the proposal, which is expected to be contentious, starting at its Dec. 5 meeting. Battle lines have begun to form.
Four proposals for high-density multifamily developments are pending before the Planning Board. The current master plan prohibits them, but the board has spent more than two years considering the amendment.
The public has not yet had the opportunity to comment on the proposed plan. But this week, attorneys representing a citizens’ group argued in a letter to the board that the master plan amendment “should only be considered if necessitated as a result of overall planning — not to address site-specific planning, which has overshadowed the process.”
Why does the Planning Board seem to have “Montclair envy?”
Go to the meeting, offer your opinion and hear others too, might help.
Battle lines have not been drawn. The citizens group is not in a battle with developers and never has been. They are trying to urge the Planning Board to proceed cautiously and keep in mind what the long term effects of changing the zoning in large areas of town will lead to. This is about the potential for more developments down the road. What most people don’t understand, is that by asking for densities that are way above what our village currently allows, there is no easy way to accomodate these developments. Our Planning Board must create a much larger zone ( more than 3x larger than these 4 developments ) and they must change the densities in this entire zone. By doing this, any property owner within this new zone (like Ulrich kitchens, Becker Body and Fender Co., or Brake-O-Rama) can be developed into a high density housing complex. High Density housing is profitable. Who is to say that these properties will not develop once the law has changed and the opportunity is presented? We would all be foolish not to consider what our town will look like when all of these properties have been built up. At the end of the day these four developments are just a drop in the bucket. It is what comes next that we should be cautioning our PB to examine.
I don’t think its Montclair envy, I think its Seacacus envy. The Board and council remind me of those evangelicals who feel that if you don’t completely use up the surroundings God gave you, then you must have done something wrong. Leave well enough alone.
What has become of the public parking garage?