file photo by Boyd Loving
MY ESSAY ON WHY WE NEED YOU AT THE PARKING GARAGE MEETING ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, 1/6.
By Dave Slomin.
Dear Supporters of Citizens for a Better Ridgewood,
This Wednesday night, 1/6, our Village Council is meeting (7:30 at Village Hall) to vote on a $12 million dollar bond to fund the biggest garage possible on the Hudson Street lot, near Sook and Mt. Carmel. We need Residents to attend… to be seen and be heard, to share your thoughts and concerns. The current plan is approximately 270’ long by 50+’ high… almost the size of a football field. Even if they opt for the smallest current option, it only shrinks by 10 feet in height. Once built, Hudson Street will be narrowed by 10’, street parking will be lost, neighboring buildings will be dwarfed, Mt. Carmel will be impacted and it will set a size and scale precedent which will be used by developers to argue for bigger, taller and denser multi-family buildings throughout our historic downtown.
That said, personally, I don’t think a parking deck, fittingly sized, is necessarily a bad idea at all… just like I don’t think that multifamily developments, fittingly-sized, are a bad idea at all. I just think the proposals we’ve seen on both are way too big, too dense, and too out of character to preserve the small-town feel of our beloved Village. For parking, in addition to a revised garage plan, the council should better review and advise on other options that spread new parking throughout our CBD, while also making drivers better aware of current parking options through signage.
I’d also like to hear more about possibly creating a Business Improvement District (BID) downtown, to get the landlords who will directly profit from this garage to chip in some more to help pay for it. That’s needed, because financing the garage is too tentative at present. The language of the actual referendum didn’t point out that much of the funding for the garage will come from increasing current meter rates in other key areas of downtown by up to 300-400% and increasing paid parking hours from 6pm to 9pm. The garage does not pay for itself. That’s pretty important stuff to know… or at least test out before you start writing checks that bank on its success. The last time Ridgewood increased parking hours to raise revenue, the Chamber of Commerce themselves complained and asked to have the hours paired back to 6pm. So before we spend $12MM, we should have a firmer idea how it’ll be paid back. Last time, some of these “givens” didn’t work so well.
Regarding size, in a November email, one Councilmember supported the notion that “quaint” is in the eye of the beholder. I’m not sure I know of any ‘beholders’ that would think the current garage plan is quaint. It’s not. As is, it’s massive. At a recent Council Meeting, the former Chairman of Ridgewood’s Historical Preservation Committee said he feared if we build this thing, we’ll look at it afterwards and think, “My, that’s a really big building.”
Backstory is… in November, our Council put forth a parking referendum, asking: “Do you support a proposal to finance and build a downtown parking garage on the Hudson Street lot… by bonding up to $15 million in public funds, which will be paid for principally, if not entirely, with parking revenues.” 65% voters voted “Yes.” However, even in voting “Yes,” many folks asked indicated they really voted more for “parking in general” than a singular giant garage. No one had any real idea how big the garage would be, as it was not determined. Yet, several Councilmembers are using this vote as if it were a ‘blank check’ in support of building the biggest edifice possible, or something close to it. That’s not right.
At the time of the referendum, Residents were essentially promised that we could vote “Yes,” and then negotiate the garage’s size later. Despite this promise, the Council so curtailed the subsequent public garage discussions that concerned residents could not give full voice to their opinions. At the main post-referendum garage meeting, initial public comment was limited to 30 minutes total (at five minutes per speaker) and then to a maximum of 3 minutes per speaker later, with no repeat speakers allowed (even though the meeting was not running late and some folks, myself included, could not finish their presentations within the 3 minute limit). I was actually asked to sit down and not speak again by a Village staffer. As such, there was no real negotiation on anything. The post-referendum garage selection process felt frustratingly preordained… like so much of what we are seeing happen in Ridgewood lately.
At the end of that meeting the Council polled 3-2 to bond for the largest garage option. This all-too-quick and ‘non-negotiated’ selection, which also wrongly occurred before the comprehensive traffic and parking study promised on 9/30/15 has been performed, raises further concerns with the “process” by which things are happening in Ridgewood.
So, in short, while we should use the opportunity of this referendum to make some smart and truly fitting decisions regarding parking, we should not rush into construction of the current over-sized garage options. Bigger for Ridgewood is not better.
Hope to see you on Wednesday night
People, the 400 space garage BS is a negotiating trick, don’t fall for it. The start of the conversation should be NO GARAGE. If you anchor the discussion at 400, then 250-300 spaces seems more reasonable. It’s a scam. The walker report only spent two days looking at Village traffic, it’s inaccuracies are stunning
When the council first decided to spend $500,000 for a garage design what did you expect, where were your protests. My letter in the Ridgewood News protested, but where were you guys.
You’re a day late and a dollar short. Good luck tonight. I wouldn’t bet on your success.
8:18am-
What are the stunning inaccuracies in the Walker Report? Demand was much higher on the days they measured? Financial projections not realistic? Please be more specific!
Agree that there may be some anchoring going. Propose something enormous, when you’d be happy with something smaller. But starting with “no garage” is also an anchoring trick! Propose building nothing, when you’d be happy building something small.
The word “Quaint” means old-fashioned or old world. The council member knows that. It could also mean attractive.
The council member KNOWS WE MEAN old fashioned or old world. He is cheating us with mixed use of word; trying to confuse us.
When the council spent $500,000 on a garage design, the game was up.
Of course the referendum is about one of the three choices of the garage design.
The protest should have been at the beginning when it was proposed at the Hudson St. location to give out $500,000 of our tax dollars for that garage design. Of course it is gigantic. What do you expect.
The council will not and cannot say they wasted the money and start all over. Your protest comes much to late.
John V. If you are planning on attending the meeting tonight, I would like to meet you. You can identify me by the fact I wear a bow tie. And have no worry, unlike what you hear from my many fans on the Blog, I am not rabid and I do not bite! Rurik Halaby
Yes John V please come to the meeting tonight to speak.
To its devotees the bow tie suggests iconoclasm of an Old World sort, a fusty adherence to a contrarian point of view. The bow tie hints at intellectualism, real or feigned, and sometimes suggests technical acumen, perhaps because it is so hard to tie. Bow ties are worn by magicians, country doctors, lawyers and professors and by people hoping to look like the above. But perhaps most of all, wearing a bow tie is a way of broadcasting an aggressive lack of concern for what other people think… A list of bow-tie devotees reads like a Who’s Who of rugged individualists: Theodore Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill and Fred Astaire wore bow ties, as did Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Paul Simon of Illinois.
” I am not rabid and I do not bite! Rurik Halaby” Yes you should have add ” If you agree with me and my friends in the Politbureau”
Re: garage size: “Let’s propose 50 units per acre so they’ll think 35 sounds small.” –the developers, encouraged by certain council members.
Sorry, won’t be able to make the meeting tonight. I have a job and kids!
John V, the Walker report looked at Village parking only over a two day period
John V – keep Rurik home with you, he would make a great babysitter. Kind of like the big bad wolf.
3:10pm-
Yup, good point. It’s a “snapshot” study, not a study at multiple points. That would be a reason to doubt the data if went against other data or personal experience. My own experience has been that it’s indeed tough to find parking on the west end of time at various points during the week. Others report different experiences. Without repeating the full financial analysis, it wouldn’t be too hard to pick some random days and survey the western half of town again just to “double check” the conclusions on utilization?
Right on Anon 12:40. Could not agree with you more! And the louder the bow tie the better. Do you wear one?
And to Anon 3:14, this might surprise you, but I am a doting grandfather. It is the disingenuous creeps that I have no time for!
Rurik Halaby
Anon 12:47 It is the “politburo” not poilibureau” Use your spell check!! Rurik
Comrade Halaby you got the jest even if the word was misspelled
jest/
noun
noun: jest; plural noun: jests
1.
a thing said or done for amusement; a joke.
“there are jests about administrative gaffes”
synonyms: joke, witticism, funny remark, gag, quip, sally, pun; More
crack, wisecrack, one-liner
“jests were bandied about freely”
in fun, as a joke, tongue in cheek, playfully, jokingly, facetiously, frivolously, for a laugh
“those sarcastic remarks were made in jest”
archaic
an object of derision.
“lowly virtue is the jest of fools”