HERSHEL HERSKOWITZ SPEAKING AT THE LAKEWOOD MASTERPLAN COMMITTEE 07/17/17

okay I just want to address to the planner over here um are you both planners okay um you mentioned that the town has to grow and if towns have to grow I just want to know maybe you want to go visit how Jackson Tom's River and educate them on how they have to grow as well because they're not growing they're at a 1% growth rate so there's a reason they're at a 1% growth rate the reason is because the more Town grows the higher your taxes go up and that is what our town is experiencing our taxes I don't know you know I don't know who hired you I don't know what they told you before they hired you what they expected from you um you know you call yourself planners I call you I can't say the word but it's the old profession in the book that's what I would call you um yeah profession um I just want to know it why is it so important to grow do you do you know the background of label do you understand that people you know they move from their small houses to a bigger house they eventually retire they move to Florida they move into senior housing people die um kids are born they get married that's the cycle of life right and most towns can handle the amount of growth that they have and don't tell me that you know Jews are having so many children that we need to build so many houses and if you tell me it's because of our growth our natural growth um explain to me why there's so many ads in all the Jewish magazines literally begging people in every language to move to Lakewood telling them that they can telling them in Brooklyn and it says in yish it says why live in Brooklyn where you don't have grass you can move to Lake where you'll have a little grass and and yes the taxes might be high but you can rent out your apartment or you can rent out two basement apartments or you can rent out your attic eventually and you can make enough money to pay for everything and come here and wonderful school here and if it just so happens to be that your child with special needs can't get services in New York you could come to Lakewood and get your special needs paid for by these wonderful folks right over here I don't know un got here you from but I don't know if they taught you that part of planning is not to hurt the people that are already here we are not opening up a welcome app for everybody from Brooklyn and M whoever wherever they're sick of living to come to Lakewood and then they realize you're not even doing them a favor because after they move here and they try to get down here nine they realize they don't want to live very either we're not doing let's stop this stupidity I I I appreciate everybody trying to to you know explain that our infrastructure has to grow in order before we build and some people say oh we're eventually going to be 200,000 no we don't have to be 200,000 people it doesn't have to be this way we can stop now we can fix what we have first I'd like to thank Mr hman who chaired the downtown committee some of his ideas were actually good some of them were awful but some of them were actually really good really good and I think with his ideas we can make a beautiful downtown we can have a city center if we ever need housing for for new couples that are getting married we don't have housing we can build some decent apartment buildings that are close to transportation that are close to shopping that are close to schools okay everybody's complaining that we keep opening schools opening schools schools are needed you can't complain that we're opening schools if you're allowing housing we need schools kids need to go to school so but if you want to curve that you want to stop that you have to stop the housing I'm sure you guys you guys have know you know what this town me you know what this town needs but you were told what to say and again that's what disgusts me and that's what that's why you know I I'd like to see if be real planners okay and and you're not Robert Moses you're not going to be building highways above you know Robert Moses I you're not going to be building highways and exits off ofout n i mean everyone comeing up with great ideas build let's build a bridge across the lake let's build a tunnel down n let's build you know I mean listen all this might be nothing soon anyway because we're going to have flying cars right so let's just stop all this let's stop the madness let's stop this the seniors are worried about themselves and rightfully so everyone cares about themselves Mr Hinman is worried about the downtown rightfully sto he put his life in his he has a wonderful business in the downtown I don't know what you guys care about but I care about my business I've 17 years I I I I slave and worked really hard to build a store that I wanted lak to be proud of I did it in Lakewood because I love Lakewood I love my town loved loved my town and I and and now I'm at a point where I just want to be done with it I want to leave and I'm just asking you if you are going to implement all these changes I have one favor this is going to give for myself can you please change the 14th Street area to the highest density possible because I just want to build some monstrosity and get out