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I don't mind people moving in. I mind the overdevelopment ruining the small town charm and causing more and more traffic and increased density and strain on mass transit. I'm sick of my town building apartments. They need to stop.
Well have you talked to someone in your local government about this? Presumably, they are the ones that are issuing permits for of this development work. I guess they don't agree with you or don't care about over crowding and traffic? Or, more likely their election campaigns are underwritten be developers and they could not care less about people.
If the state/local government is allowing more development, they should be responsible to ensure that the transportation systems remain adequate. That includes mass transit, roads, bridges. And developers who are allowed to profit from the new building they build should be required to contribute to the transportation costs. That is how this works in the most other Western countries. Only the dysfunctional US government officials issue permits for over development and could not care less about the state of infrastructure. They just assume that the transportation systems and infrastructure will just take care of themselves. That is why PATH is essentially running on the systems that were built a century ago. With some fixes that ensure the system does not fall apart further...
Yeah? So you're for overdevelopment and the urbanization of small towns?
My family's been in Cranford for over 50 years. Get in line.
If you want a small town, move to Iowa. You can't expect to live 30 minutes away from a major metropolis and expect no growth. Attitudes like yours is what leads to sprawl as people move even further out.
Well have you talked to someone in your local government about this? Presumably, they are the ones that are issuing permits for of this development work. I guess they don't agree with you or don't care about over crowding and traffic? Or, more likely their election campaigns are underwritten be developers and they could not care less about people.
If the state/local government is allowing more development, they should be responsible to ensure that the transportation systems remain adequate. That includes mass transit, roads, bridges. And developers who are allowed to profit from the new building they build should be required to contribute to the transportation costs. That is how this works in the most other Western countries. Only the dysfunctional US government officials issue permits for over development and could not care less about the state of infrastructure. They just assume that the transportation systems and infrastructure will just take care of themselves. That is why PATH is essentially running on the systems that were built a century ago. With some fixes that ensure the system does not fall apart further...
The government isn't so much dysfunction as it has no easy solution. We cannot simply blast new tunnel from NJ to NY without a huge cost hit to taxpayers plus years if not decades of time spent dealing with every special interest group that will hold up construction. A bridge into lower Manhattan is virtually impossible because supporting incline lanes and ramps would destroy billions in valuable real estate.
Chris Christie shot down the best possible project in the pipeline to easing congestion for suburban commuters but for those coming from just over the river there is no easy solution. Increased government involvement in subsidized water transport is the best short term solution IMO for the tower construction areas like Newport or Powerhouse district in JC. Commuters from Harrison or Newark are simply SOL.
Well have you talked to someone in your local government about this? Presumably, they are the ones that are issuing permits for of this development work. I guess they don't agree with you or don't care about over crowding and traffic? Or, more likely their election campaigns are underwritten be developers and they could not care less about people.
Of course. Cranford residents are going to meetings and signing petitions strongly opposing all the building and addition of chain places. I am one of them. Our township committee doesn't seem to care. There are actually quite a few residents unhappy about the development. There are also some who don't care.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ny789987
If you want a small town, move to Iowa. You can't expect to live 30 minutes away from a major metropolis and expect no growth. Attitudes like yours is what leads to sprawl as people move even further out.
I'm fine with growth, that is understandable, I'm not fine with building on any available lot and disregarding traffic and transportation concerns (and parking concerns). Clearly, our mass transit systems are already strained (hence how this relates to the thread) and it's unnecessary and frankly a bad decision to keep building and building without also somehow adjusting for the added people on the transportation systems. Our roads are crowded and a mess, we are already the densest state in the nation, our trains are already crowded, old, and have frequent issues and we already lack enough tunnels to the city. All of our train lines don't even end in Manhattan and require switching, which people are also vying to change so all lines have direct access (like the RVL). What I'm saying here is not unreasonable.
We don't have a lot of empty land left in my area. I don't find it necessary to build apartments on every available lot like they seem to be doing lately. Like I said, even more are proposed. I just don't think we have room for more and more people.
We don't have to turn every town into a mini city just because some hipsters with a baby decided Brooklyn or Hoboken are no longer viable options and they made a bad decision 5 years ago.
If you want a small town, move to Iowa. You can't expect to live 30 minutes away from a major metropolis and expect no growth. Attitudes like yours is what leads to sprawl as people move even further out.
It can be disturbing when you see the flavor of a place ruined by forced and speedy development. I get where JerseyGirl is coming from. It happened to me, 25 - 30 years ago now, watching my little NW Bergen County town and surrounding area build up overnight. We can't expect places not to change, but when it's driven by nothing but greed on the part of the developers and the town council and overgrowth ruins the atmosphere of a place you are tied to, it's hard to watch.
It can be disturbing when you see the flavor of a place ruined by forced and speedy development. I get where JerseyGirl is coming from. It happened to me, 25 - 30 years ago now, watching my little NW Bergen County town and surrounding area build up overnight. We can't expect places not to change, but when it's driven by nothing but greed on the part of the developers and the town council and overgrowth ruins the atmosphere of a place you are tied to, it's hard to watch.
I know for a fact one major developer is actually a town resident with friends on the council. He's in it for the money and his friends in town support it because they're his friends. No one cares about the best interest of the town, or beyond, the state. It's very frustrating. Like I said, we really just don't have the space for more development in this part of NJ. What, is every available lot going to be taken up? Because that's what it seems like. And at what cost? Current residents and the transportation systems and roads. Those of us who have lived here in this already dense area for years already struggle with crowded trains and lack of space, adding more people helps no one.
They are proposing a 500 unit apartment complex on North Ave (or maybe it's South? whatever) in Garwood, just across the Cranford border. 500 units. An old derelict factory, huge, currently exists on the site and they want to knock it down and build housing. This is on top of yet another going up in Cranford, one that has been delayed many years that residents took to court but finally lost on and is now definitely being built, AND another one proposed for an area of Cranford that would cause even more local traffic and parking concerns. My question is, do we have room for these people? Room on the roads, in town, on mass transit? Do we have enough parking spaces downtown to accommodate these people and their vehicles when they come to nearby town centers to hang out? I don't think we do. It's absurd. I'd rather see more businesses pop up than more housing. Maybe another school, a nice park. A nice medical facility. Something that's not 500+ more people in one rather small town, when nothing else is changing as more people are added to the area.
I think overdevelopment is an issue in general in this state. Driving around, I see sites under construction and think to myself, geez more condos? Where are we fitting these people?? And clearly it is and will keep impacting mass transit. We need to either stop developing so much, because let's face it we have enough people and high density already, or make sure we also develop mass transit and fix our roads so we can actually accommodate all those who want to live in NJ and work in the city. Yes, we live in a major metro area, but not everyone gets to live here at the cost of people who already do. We don't need to build on every available space. It has to end somewhere. I bet a lot of people would love to move to a Caribbean island if possible for the beauty, weather, and pace of life, but it's not exactly feasible to fit millions on Saint Thomas is it? We don't all get to live there do we?
Bottom line is, the development happens anyway because it makes developers rich, and that is important to them, and they have an in with town committees somehow. Maybe a friend, maybe some money. Maybe the town just wants more people for selfish reasons. No one thinks about the impact on the towns themselves and other factors like trains except current residents. And when it's brought up, at least in our experience, it's pretty much ignored. The sudden boom in development really sucks and makes an instant and noticeable impact on the town and area. I don't even go into Westfield anymore because good luck finding a parking spot, even on a weekday. I went to get my eyebrows waxed in downtown Cranford one day last week and circled the block three times before I finally said screw it and parked illegally in the train station without a permit during hours. Don't even know how I found a spot but good for me I guess.
Some very interesting points raised here. The criticisms voiced regarding development in Cranford can also be found in similar towns, such as the "keep the village a village" movement in Maplewood against the Post Office project, or the Haddon Towne Center in Westmont. I wonder though, aside from taller buildings and parking concerns, are these towns really facing a change in character? The complaints about rapid development resemble those voiced in say, Hoboken in the 80s, Brooklyn and Philadelphia today, and soon Newark too, except in those cases poor, oftentimes minority residents were rapidly displaced by wealthy white residents. Here it seems more like white residents of similar incomes who prefer downtown/apartment style living are taking away parking spots (a common complaint among older Hobokenites in the 80s) and potentially increasing school populations. Not quite the same thing.
As for the concerns regarding overbuilding/overcrowding; I think it's clear mass transit will need an upgrade in the near future to sustain this kind of high-density downtown construction. But what's the alternative? An end to all new construction is unrealistic, and to push new construction further out to the metropolitan fringe is an even worse idea. Culpability for North Jersey's bad traffic rests largely with the low-density office parks, malls, and mcmansion developments (just try getting anywhere between 4 and 7 PM in Parsippany, Piscataway, Bridgewater, Cherry Hill, Paramus, or any of the other office park farms in this state). Sure, it might be nice to think that our state is full and we should curtail all developments, but that is literally the antithesis of American capitalism. Our presumptive next president built his empire on real-estate development; it's hardly the time to tell builders not to build.
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