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Planning Board Meeting, May 6th 2008 - Summary

At the planning board meeting May 6th, it became clear that this process is going to take several more months before it is goes to a vote. During the course of the professional’s reports, the Planning Board raised some specific concerns that will require further investigation and will take time. Below is a summary of some of the issues that were raised by the planning board and the planning board professionals:

• Justification: All zoning regulations need to promote a “public purpose”. While hospitals do promote the public purpose and often given special status, there is always a balance that must be struck against the negatives that will result. The negatives also include the long construction phase. Construction standards to regulate the negatives would need to be added to the ordinances if they were passed.
• Affordable Housing: If the Valley expansion is approved, 60 new affordable housing units would need to be constructed for lower income tenants. While Valley has said that they would carry the cost of these ($10 million+), the problem is where would they go? Ridgewood would have to rezone an existing zone to allow them to be built.
• Road Widening: The corner of Linwood Ave and Van Dien is currently at “D” grade intersection (Scale: A=zero wait time, F=80 seconds wait time or more). This is based on the peak traffic time that occurs every day at about 3pm when the hospital shift change occurs and BF school comes out. If the Valley expansion is approved, the county would have to approve the site plan and it is expected that the county would then insist that the intersection be upgraded and the road widened. The Village Engineer was asked to approach the county for clarification. The other consideration is that if the intersection is improved, it could attract more traffic away from other streets.
• Parking: The professional employed by the Village to review the traffic study is “not buying” the Hospital claims about limited growth in vehicle traffic. More work needs to be done and he was asked to get more information from the hospital. The Village Planner also said that more parking is needed. The implication is that might require a second story be placed on the proposed parking garage on Linwood Ave.
• Visual Impact: The Planner conceded that the proposal would have a significant visual impact. If the road is widened, then the setbacks of 40 feet would be reduced to 28 feet. The implication would be that there then would not be enough room for adequate vegetation buffers. The Village Engineer said that buffer details should be specifically added to any ordinances. The Planning Board also asked for further clarification on Valley’s need for the extra roof equipment height and the 2 feet between floors.
• Traffic: A peak times the hospital generates 800 car trips per hour according to the traffic engineer. This will increase, but the predicted amount has yet to be determined. Pedestrian safety could be improved on Linwood and Van Dien.
• Zoning Changes:
• Valley is also asking for a Zoning change to incorporate a childcare facility.
• The Village Engineer said that, while Valley is not asking for it today, he could see a future where Valley wants to expand by purchasing homes. This has zoning implications.
•  While Ridgewood can handle the increased sewer needs of an expanded hospital, storm water run-off is problematic and would need to be handled by some on-site temporary storage, treatment system and seepage tank.
• Construction Practices: Establishing construction ordinances with penalties to control; deliveries, truck idling, construction times and staging material off-site would be needed to enforce any Construction Agreements.
• Environmental: The Village Engineer suggested that the following items should be added to the ordinances: noise abatement, positive noise cancelling, air quality, vehicle idling, dust emission, grey water for irrigation, solar panel and green building practices.
• Control: The mayor expressed concern over the fact that there would need to be changes in the ordinances to ensure that the Planning Board still had control after approval as once it reached the site planning phase, the Village would no longer be able to insist on compliance.

Overall it was good to hear that many of the concerns that have been raised by the Concerned Residents of Ridgewood are now being looked at. However, the devil is in the details! Two points that came across strongly were that the impact on the immediate neighbors would be greater than at first considered and that the affordable housing issue and its impact on all of Ridgewood, has no simple solutions.

helpdesk@stopvalley.com