October 16, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 3 Ridgewood Schedler neighbors denounce large field and lot by John Koster A spokesperson for the residential neighbors of the Schedler property told the Ridgewood Village Council that the people who live nearest the tract are strongly opposed to plans for a large sports field and a 74-car parking lot on the site. The Open Space Committee had offered a tentative plan for a multipurpose sports field and adequate nearby park- ing at the site, which is now heavily wooded and contains a 200-year-old frame farmhouse in no great state of repair, but of at least some historical interest. The building was last refurbishment in the 1950s, and that project is said to have reduced the building’s historical value. “It is your duty to reject the open space proposal,” Michele Italia Dlugash told the council members. She said that neighbors might accept a smaller field and smaller parking lot in a spirit of community cooperation, but that cutting down the number of quality trees and other trees needed for what she said was a 350-foot playing field and 74 parking spaces was unacceptable and unfair to the Schedler Property neighbors. Dlugash presented the council with a petition she said had 271 signatures of nearby residents opposed to the large field and large parking lot which the Open Space Committee had recommended as the future of the lot. Cutting down a number of trees, Dlugash said, would remove the capacity of the woodland to reduce pollution and noise from busy Route 17, and would reduce the visual buffer that presently prevents the state highway from impacting too heavily on the neighborhood. She disagreed with the suggestion that, if the neighbors want the venerable house saved, they should contribute money raised locally, instead of using funds from the entire community, as has been done with the much larger Haber- nickel property on Hillcrest Avenue. Ready to go! The council listened to her presentation and allowed her to speak beyond the three-minute limit because she rep- resented a number of people and no one else spoke on the same topic. No decision on the plan has been made and, while the Open Space Committee suggested action within a year, no firm date has been set. Sunday school students from the Old Paramus Church in Ridgewood check out the Harvest Fair sign before it was put up at the railroad overpass.