Dear Editor:
In the CBS 2 evening news clip of Feb. 15, New Jersey Residents Ready to Fight for Their View, Lou Young tells us that residents are fighting on behalf of, “the last stretch of undeveloped riverfront land in North Bergen.” I’m a resident of North Bergen, and I’m distressed to hear that our local government would let the last tract of land on the Hudson be walled off by an apartment complex. Aesthetically, it’s depressing news. While driving along River Road, we can see the sun set, the boats sail and the birds land. This makes us lucky to live around here. What would make us change that?
It’s North Bergen government looking for tax revenues. However, building homes in an economic downturn with a glut of buildings already along the river seems like a prescription for more empty apartments. You can’t collect taxes from empty buildings.
But what if it were wildly successful? What if 200 plus families with their cars move in? In that case, we’d fill the area with more traffic, pollution, and demands on sewers, fire, police, schools, and sanitation. We’d pave over more land, make flooding into a greater problem, and have to deal with the consequences. In the end, it might not even make economic sense, much less lifestyle or environmental sense.
To me, it’s not just those New Jersey residents fighting for their view. It’s all of us fighting against a poorer quality of life, fighting against degrading the environment. How about some kind of public access to the river for residents? Let’s ask our leaders to be responsible, imaginative, and bold. Letting the last tract of land go to developers is simply the wrong thing to do.
Janet L. Glass
North Bergen