The Ramsey Council this week introduced two ordinances that would create new overlay zones to meet the borough’s affordable housing requirements — and many residents aren’t happy.
The proposed zones would allow multi‑family buildings, townhouses and garden apartments, with at least 20% of the units set aside as affordable housing.
They would cover a stretch of Island Road, including Ferguson Place and North Franklin Turnpike, roughly between Madison Avenue and Lake Street.
The council received about a dozen letters opposing the plan prior to the meeting and more than a dozen residents spoke out against it during the public comment period.
Mayor Deirdre Dillon read a statement at the start of the council meeting Wednesday night that explained how ordinances are adopted, what the borough’s affordable housing obligation is and how it arrived at using these sections of town as overlay zones.
“There clearly is a lot of misinformation floating around regarding the proposed ordinance and the process,” she said.
The borough is required to create one or more overlay zones that are near mass transit and highway corridors. These locations were recommended by the borough’s planner, Burgis Associates, Dillon said.
Ramsey’s affordable housing obligation for the fourth round, which covers the next 10 years, was determined to be 450 units.
Because the borough is fully developed, it gets an adjustment which reduced that number to 26 affordable housing units that must be built in the next ten years.
Dillon said those 26 units are already accounted for in three projects — six special needs residences to be built on Island Road, a proposed development at 40 North Franklin Turnpike and a proposed development at 1 Constantine Drive.
No units must be built in the Island Road overlay zone for Ramsey to comply with the fourth round, Dillon said.
“The site might or might never produce an actual affordable housing project,“ she said. ”That’s up to the owners of the property whether they want to all get together and sell to a developer. The borough has no control over that.”
Ramsey is not planning to pursue eminent domain, Dillon said.
“The borough is not seizing this property,” she said. “The borough has no intention of seizing this property. Control of these properties regarding any future development remains in the hands of the current property owners.”
Residents who spoke during the hour-long public comment period pressed the council on why other parts of town weren’t considered and why they were only learning about the plan now. Several also worried that creating the overlay zone would trigger pressure from developers to sell their homes.
More than a dozen residents, many from Island Road and Ferguson Place, spoke about their close‑knit community and warned that the plan could hurt property values, increase traffic and alter the character of the neighborhood.
“Ferguson Place and Island Road are not vacant land on a map,” said Alicia Carbone, who along with her husband is completing renovations on a home on Ferguson Place that was abandoned for 15 years.
“We are a living, breathing community,” she added.
Joe Carey, of Island Road, said the neighborhood of modest homes on one-third acre lots already reflects the organic diversity intended by the affordable housing act.
“Have we exhausted other low-impact alternatives before rezoning a stable neighborhood,” Carey asked. “We should ask whether our 60-year-old single family use zoning with huge parking requirements and strict height limits have constrained viable redevelopment in areas already suited for growth.”
The council is scheduled to vote on the adoption of the overlay ordinances at its March 4, 2026 meeting.
All New Jersey towns face a March 15, 2026 deadline to submit their affordable housing plans to the state or they will lose immunity from builder’s remedy lawsuits.
“If a builder’s remedy lawsuit is successful, the borough will be unable to stop the builder from building in its desired location, whether or not the location is zoned for multi-family housing,” Dillon said.
“And the borough zoning ordinances regarding density, height, setbacks, parking, etc. will not apply so the borough will be at the mercy of the builder,” she added.
