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Ridgewood council defeats Kensington assisted‑living overlay after hours of public comment
Summary
After a packed public hearing in which residents raised traffic, safety and transparency concerns, the Ridgewood Village Council voted unanimously to defeat Ordinance 4052 — the proposed S‑1 Senior Overlay for Kensington — and invited the developer to submit a scaled‑back plan for a Sept. 4 public preview.
Mayor Paul Bragianos moved the Kensington matter to the start of the Aug. 13 meeting and told residents the council intended to reject the current ordinance so the developer could return with a smaller proposal: “I have learned that we will defeat ordinance 4052 this evening,” he said. The council also asked Beth McManus, the village’s affordable‑housing consultant, to explain the legal and planning context before public comment.
McManus told the council the property at issue sits in the B‑2 district, which allows a range of commercial uses and upper‑story apartments, and that under current zoning the site could reasonably accommodate about 22 apartments and roughly 9,000 square feet of commercial space without variances. Asked about traffic, she said typical assisted‑living developments generate far fewer resident trips than many permitted commercial uses, but acknowledged that driveway‑level counts should be produced by a traffic engineer: “No traffic study has been done for this site,” she said when asked later by a resident.
McManus…
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