Urban Renewal in Suffern
-
- April
- 13
The village board has voted to initiate study into whether a section of Orange Avenue could qualify for an urban renewal project – condominiums – that could be constructed by the Ginsburg Development Companies.
The section being studied is roughly between 120 Orange Ave. and Maple Avenue.
If the area, or part of it, is designated as a blighted area, the village could consider using eminent domain to acquire property for what it would see as the overall good of the community.
What do you think?
This entry was posted
on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 5:27 pm by James Walsh.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Share and Enjoy: del.icio.us Digg Google Technorati Yahoo! | 
Print
| 
Email
Advertisement
I used to live behind the OTB up until three years ago.
What do we have along those two Orange Ave. blocks? Bagel Train, a (recently freshened up) laundromat (Oh noes! Immigrant gathering place! Hey, is this the real target?), OTB (a [too?] popular hangout), former car dealership, house, auto repair shop (I will grant that the car-centric spots may be slightly blightly), Ramapo Mountain Valley Brew Pub-ateria (whoever they are this year)...
People will pay to live on the (busy) Orange Avenue in front of the (busy) train station?! Woo woo! (And in 2012 will no doubt be lobbying to get trains to hush up.)
I can't say that it's worthy of an eminent domain action. If there was any part of Suffern that creeped me out, it'd be "along Wayne Ave. at night." Try the conventional route, buying out the auto dealership, knocking it down, and putting up a dozen condo units.
That'll be $5,000, please.
While it's premature to say what would be built, a Ginsburg representative has said they'd want to do a large project rather than a small one.
Your point about the train noise is interesting. Do people want to live next to the railroad tracks? It's a relatively busy train line – commuter as well as freight – and I wonder if people get used to it after a while, or, if like you say, people will move in and then complain about the noise?
When we looked for a house, there was one listed that was right up against the west side of the tracks. We noticed it had been priced lower than surrounding properties. We didn't give it a second glance. I'd guess that the noise would be a constant nusance, but I suppose you'd tune it out/down. There are a lot of buses that run up and down 202, also. (In fact, my wife never took the train. She was a bus person.) The commute into NYC is pretty good from Suffern. I imagine one could actually have a faster commute into Manhattan than some Queens dwellers.
Ok, here's a new development scenario: Knock down the OTB (it could move to… mmm, the old Grand Union in Airmont), then put up the Ginsburminiums.
Taking out the whole block? He better be putting Bagel Train back! (Psst: Move the Bagel Train and the laundromat to the former car dealership! Added bonus: I imagine that more people would use the stairs, rather than risk their necks crossing the tracks for breakfast.)
There are also three houses on that block, along Park Ave. To recoup all the relocation costs, this project would have to be big, and/or upscale, 'natch.
That'll be another $2,000. Thank you!