Here's today's Record article. By the way, Adult Day Care centers are a prohibited use under the Zoning ordinance everywhere in Hackensack. I think Eric Martindale and Joseph Mellone had something to do with it.
That's a new provision, just put into the ordinance in 2005. They require a variance anywhere and everywhere in Hackensack. If anyone wonders why, just go down to Newark and take a tour of the Adult Day Care Center on Broadway just south of Grafton Ave. It's run like a giant homeless shelter, and most of the "patients" have their care paid for by the taxpayers of New Jersey.
Hackensack residents turn out against proposed medical center
Thursday, May 14, 2009
BY MAYA KREMEN
NorthJersey.com
Staff Writer
0 Comments HACKENSACK — Nearly 200 residents packed a Zoning Board meeting tonight to protest a proposal for a 24-story medical center in a residential area near Prospect Avenue. Residents, many of whom were wearing buttons protesting the project, waited in a long line to confront the property’s owner, Richard Pineles. The proposed structure would be a 24-hour operation with an underground garage in what is currently a residential neighborhood.
“What you are trying to do, I believe, is destroy our neighborhood,” longtime resident Jack McKinney said to a round of applause.
The city has said Pineles needs more than a dozen variances, including ones for parking, use and lot size. The area is currently zoned for residential and multi-family buildings.
Pineles’ traffic engineer claims that he does not need a variance for parking and that the 402 parking spaces provided in the underground parking structure are enough.
The facility, which would provide adult day care and dialysis among other services, would fill a need in the area, Pineles said. He also owns two nursing homes in the city.
“There are 840 slots for adult day care in Bergen County, but statistics bear out that there’s a greater need,” he said. “Currently there’s no adult day care center in Hackensack.” The facility would be able to house 250 adults for the day care program, Pineles said.
But residents said that the area is already congested and is not suited for such a large building. “Not only will it impact traffic, it’s going to deflate property values,” said Joanne Ehman of Prospect Avenue. “It doesn’t belong in the neighborhood.”
The meeting was the second Zoning Board meeting about the proposed facility, which is known as the Bergen Passaic Long Term Acute Care Hospital.
E-mail: kremenm@northjersey.com