the staff of the Ridgewood
Ridgewood NJ, resident Jacqueline Hone voiced concerns over the Schedler clean up .Jacqueline Hone said the $99,000 was very large and the residents were in the dark about many aspects to that cleanup , including sidewalks.
Hone went on to voice her concerns on the discovery of artifacts on the property and speculated on the lack of qualifications of the clean up crew dealing with antiquities .
Also Hone voiced fears over over development and the loss of a natural space and also the many inaccuracies and falsehoods on the 2009 application that have still not been addressed .
Janice Willett then followed up about transparency in public notices specifically with the potential costs for Schedler if the Village does not get any grant money resident could be on the hook for the whole $635,000 to renovate a property with no designated purpose .
A boondoggle is a project that is considered a waste of both time and money, yet is often continued due to extraneous policy or political motivations.
“Antiquities” LOL
As long as tress are not removed and there is no loss of green space I am OK with whatever they decide. $99000 is not terribly bad considering how old this house is.
Sell it.
The mayor’s father and the other neighbors should be allowed to buy the damn thing from the Village for $1.5million. Then we can stop spending my tax dollars on it.
Maybe the water company can buy it for there new headquarters.
We would never be on the hook for $635,000. These are matching grants. If the grant applications(Phase1 and Phase 11) are not approved the town would have to go back to the drawing board with all that the process would entail: resolutions ,public hearings, etc. The original request from the Schedler group was a matching grant in the amount of 90,000 dollars with 45,000 dollars in an account raised by the advocates to ensure the beginning steps for saving the house ( roof, mold treatment,etc.) The council at that time voted against this grant application knowing full well that they would not be out any money. It took years to make the Stable what it is today. When money is available in the budget,fund raising and or grants, additional work will ensue. The past council was in favor of a 90 foot baseball diamond(field). The original plans for this would have entailed removal of all trees, the house and possibly a wall which the DOT would not have paid for and would have cost upwards of a million dollars. Schedler advocates want to see a long term plan for the entire property which would include the house, an all purpose grass field, a possible play ground and walking trail and the trees! Worthy goals at a price we can afford and may take several years to complete based on the willingness to do so and budgetary constraints.
You guys are right this is a waste of time and money. Even if it’s your restored and $1 million later who’s going to pay for the upkeep. And we really need this. One big money pit . Way too much dirty politics in this town. like I said they do they want to blow smoke up everybody’s ass.
Maintaining this house can be much less than maintaining a sports field on top of the huge cost of tree cutting, green space loss, building the highway wall etc. Keep the property. We spent 1.6 million on accommodating a dead water company, why not use $$$ to preserve some green space?
Exactly the point Bruce. We have to get the Village out of the real estate business. We buy these things and then are prevented from doing anything with them. Shedler, horse farm, Town garage, Elk’s club. Those alone are nearly $10m of real estate the Village has bought not to mention millions in studies and plans for each.
Think about this: if you had let them be bought by market forces you’d have:
Horse farm–8 houses worth $750k each. thats $6m in taxables
Shedler–Strip mall with highway access–$5m? in taxables
Elk’s club–Could be offices or bar–$1m
Town garage–retail or restaurant with parking–$2m
so $14 million in lost taxable land. So we spent $10m, fail to collect on $14m per year AND all it causes is headaches with neighbors complaining if anyone wants to do anything with these properties. Not saying everything needs to get developed. I love trees and those neighborhood parks can be great. I am just saying that as a tax payer I hate paying for these things and then having every attempt to make them usable be shot down, criticized and attacked. Just look at the BS about the horse farm since they actually got a paying tenant. Disgraceful.
Torch it….or build condos there for Saraceno’s Ghetto.
Maybe they can develope it into fields like habernickel and take away the peace and quiet that exists in that neighborhood too. And then after you put fields there you can add a for profit business like at habernickel that is generating a very large income for the private owner yet causing disturbances in the neighborhood on an hourly basis. Then if that isn’t enough utilize the passive side for children’s lacrosse because we all know how peaceful it is to have screaming kids and coaches in your backyard. Maybe schedler folk would enjoy all that the habernickel folk have to endure!! It is really great when it all happens at once. The never ending goings on of the private business, soccer and baseball practice on the fields and parks and rec lacrosse programs
Yes hopefully whatever they do over there you get more consideration that the habernickel neighborhood. Those people got fields that host 2 different sports games and practices and then a slap in the face with a private business that has bus after bus come and go. The business was given a large price of property and 12 parking spots. Village employees are constantly there doing one thing or another to help this business do well and all on Ridgewood tax payers dime. $20.000 front steps!!! When a family lived there the village did not have the maintainaance it has now and our town sports had parking. Lose lose for us tax payers. Win win for healthbarn. Who are the fools now?
There needs to be historic preservation, isn’t that why most residents go to Europe, because of the hundred of years old history, villages, way of life. The 13 colonies is where our history started. I wonder and would like to know how the ancestors feel and how are they contributing. I don’t feel that knock them down build them up, george jetson mcmansions are the answer
Who give a flying dump what Janice Willet has to say?