An item on this week’s Village Council Work Session agenda was discussion of whether the Village should purchase approximately 4 acres of vacant property at the intersection of Route 17 & West Saddle River Road. If purchased by Village officials, the property would most likely be cleared to facilitate construction of several athletic playing fields.
Total post-revaluation assessment value for the 4 acres is $2.6 million; the availability of grant funds to assist with the purchase is unknown at this time.
Council members directed Village Manager Jim Ten Hoeve to ask Village Planner Blais Brancheau for a memo detailing all suitable uses for the property, which is now zoned as residential. Further discussion on the topic was shelved pending arrival of Brancheau’s memo.
The Ridgewood Blog 
Why are they even bothering to ask for a Blais memo? Didn’t he say not to approve the Bolger facility and they did anyway. Do they just pay him to write memos they just ignore?
Located convienently on Rt 17, that property would make a great location for, let’s see, maybe a storage facility.
This is something they should do — it makes sense if we can put in fields.
Actually, the hospital should buy this space and move its new operations there and we take back the old hospital space as a field
Let’s sell the horse farm to a developer, rebatables you know, and use the money to biuld a sports complex.
How about a bubble with basketball courts and an indoor turf field (lights obviously included).
Think of the use we would get out of it. Then we could turf the rest of the land for more fields.
Hey, then we would be like Suffren. Ever see their new complex of Rt 17? It’s beautiful.
See there, problem solved and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
10:50 AM,
I don’t think the hospital will swap the land but it is a great idea.
Let’s buy it and build a bridge between it and the horse farm. That way we can enjoy even more open space.
The town will buy it and let valley put their affordable housing….. how convenient..120 kids will do nicely at travell and bf. Then again would could loose more money and re open glenn and only bf would be affected….
10:53 –
Yes and it would be a win-win!
We get a big ratable and the developer gets lots of money… win-win… (at least according to the brainless on the other thread)
All the people pushing for more athletic fields will be moving out of here soon and we, the long time residents, will be footing ever increasing tax bills. Enough is enough. No one is going to the pros. Less than one tenth of one percent might get athletic scholarships. Curbing our ratables growth is very, very unwise.
10:53 AM –
Sounds good. There is at least 6 million in the horse farm we would get back plus the ongoing revenue generated by the new condos in property taxes.
That would be more than enough to cover the nut of buying the property on Rt. 17 and building a bubble sports complex and turfing an outdoor field.
Brilliant idea, just brilliant.
1:38
I disagree — we need fields — my kids are almost done and I’m not going anywhere (unless the council incumbents win) but i think open fields are what keeps our property values up. they ain’t making any more land.
Forget more athletic fields. My taxes are already going up with the new assessment and rate.
Ridgewood needs ratables!!
Put condos, Bank Headquarter, retail, Best Buys, Office Depot, whatever – for a ratable!
The vast, vast majority of these kids aren’t playing sports to go “to the pros” or get scholarships. The benefits of youth sports are proven and many, beginning with the obvious: health and physical fitness, mental health/stress reduction, and building social skills including leadership, problem-solving, and more…Hey, why not join us here in the 21st century?
3:08, I like your take. Thanks for chiming in with a voice of reason. I simply don’t understand why there needs to be such antipathy toward sports enthusiasts who require large, open fields that don’t become unavailable with the slightest rainfall (football, lacrosse, soccer, rugby, field hockey, etc.) versus safe roads (biking, running), air-conditioned buildings (weightlifting, aerobics, spin classes), clean pools (swim teams), serviceable courts (basketball, tennis), or lush courses (golf).
My kids are spastic geeks yet they love the recreational sports programs in town. Without these programs, they would want to sit home and play video games all day (which I would NOT allow). With the rise in juvenile and adolescent obesity and diabetes, I think the sports programs in town provide a huge service to the community. Let’s face it, there’s only about 10 kids in each grade who accel at sports. It’s likely none of them will rise to the top as they progress.
6:33 PM –
“My kids are spastic geeks…”
“Let’s face it, there’s only about 10 kids in each grade who accel at sports. It’s likely none of them will rise to the top as they progress.
…and thanks to the BOE’s stellar math curriculum they won’t be able to excel in academics as well.
Sell the horse farm. It’s a waste of property for sports.
And not much good for bird watching either.
Take the money from its sale and buy and develop land that has some actual use as a sports complex.
We have a six million dollar investment in that farm Jane insisted we buy. Let’s use its equity for the betterment of our children and village.
I agree with 10:53.
Who needs DEBATE just say HORSE FARM.
1:02 is just sore cause he lost his way in another thread. Don’t pay attention to his Sarcastic posts. Maybe he’ll go away.
9:02 – I’m the mom of the spazzes. They actually do quite well in academics, thank you very much. I afterschool them in math, science and grammer.
stop taking land off the tax rolls. let it get developed and taxed accordingly. every parcel removed from the tax rolls costs taxpayers. there is no industry in this town to ‘assess’. its route 17..see what can be done to maximize the tax revenue produced from the site
Read the New York Times article about the huge number of injuries our girls are incurring while dparticipating in sports. Let’s tone it down a little. It’s the parents , not the kids.
1:02
It’s only one WIN
The developer makes money and we lose– WOOD?
7:11 –
Nothing personal against your kids… you just make my point that the RW school system is failing its students with things like constructivist math, so much so that you need to supplement their education with after-schooling in order to make them competitive and properly educated.
7:21 –
Of course it is only one win. I was being sarcastic since people like 6:04 can’t distinguish between a business negotiation with a clear winner and loser and a “win-win” situation. This is evidenced in the other thread, where no matter how many times it was explained the brainless 6:04s of the world were unable to comprehend. Once the conversation devolves into a fruitless exercise, it no longer is a conversation worthy of my time.
Track 6:04… He’ll come up with some laughable logic…if he doesn’t fall back to the advanced argument of name-calling.
12:25 – my response was tongue in cheek. They do well AFTER I supplement. Get it?
Perfect place for our new COAH requirements.
12:36
Good thing your friend Bolger has nothing to do with this. I’m sure you’d go off the deep end with rants.
7:11 — I take it you don’t work on their spelling? Ha. (Grammer?) Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Put the COAH housing at Habernickel.. The purpose of low income housing is to include the low income families in the community. They will still pay taxes.
Route 17 could be the home of the bigger & better Valley Hospital.
Valley could be converted to a field adjacent to BF. Win – Win – Win.
OMG 3 WINS, I can’t wait to see what this brings.
Don’t you think that this would be a great location for a great diner?
I’m tired of going to Ho HO Kus all the time and I’ve worn out the Daily Threat oops I mean Treat, with its poor service and the same food all the time.
Ratables are a myth! If ratables saved so much tax money, we would be paying very low property taxes, wouldn’t we, since Ridgewood has so few open spaces left. Each condo that goes up costs us money, doesn’t save us money. Ratables? This is a “crock” proposed by developers to make you think you are saving money. Think about it? Are our taxes low since we have filled in almost every empty lot, and sold off pieces of big property for new homes?
Ratables? grow up and look at the facts. Each new home costs us: schools, roads, garbage, utilities, etc. traffic, you name it. Does a town like Saddle River have ratables to keep its costs down? No, it doesn’t have schools, and it has lots of open space between homes!
Think, think before you ask for costly “ratables”.
9:48
Come on, it has built in ratables.
High price homes. Not commerical ratables. No schools, no full time FD.
You’re right about condos, however BIG homes produce BIG taxes and still only have 4 to 5 people per home.
Don’t knock homes as ratables.
Even property in the center of town is worth $$$$ in taxes.
I like the diner idea.