Hospital battle resumes tonight in Hackensack Thursday, January 20, 2011
Last updated: Thursday January 20, 2011, 6:21 AM
BY MONSY ALVARADO NorthJersey.com
STAFF WRITER HACKENSACK
—The fight over allowing a 19-story acute care hospital to be built on Prospect Avenue will continue tonight when the zoning board resumes hearings on a proposal that has drawn opposition from neighbors who say the plan would negatively affect the area.
The residents say the character of Summit Avenue, with its one-family homes and tree-lined sidewalks, is in jeopardy. They also say Prospect Avenue, home to dozens of high-rises, would become even more jampacked with cars and traffic.
"It's a safety issue, too,'' said Regina Nepsha, who has lived on Prospect Avenue for more than 15 years. "I work from home and I'm around here a lot, and traffic here is unbearable. I've seen people almost get hit, and it's only going to get worse if this building is allowed to come in."
The applicant, Bergen Passaic Long Term Acute Care Hospital LLC, wants to demolish two-story homes on Prospect and Summit avenues to make room for the acute care hospital.
The hospital would be built on 1.15 acres that extend from Prospect to Summit, with the building being constructed on the Prospect Avenue side, and a landscaped circular driveway on the Summit side, according to testimony.
Richard Pineles, vice president of the company, did not return a call for comment on Wednesday. His attorney, Joseph Basralian, referred questions to Pineles.
But according to testimony, the building would have 10 floors of patient rooms, a dialysis center with 63 stations and an adult medical day-care center for up to 180 people. The building would have five levels of underground parking on the Summit Avenue side of the project.
Joseph Burgis, a planner hired by Pineles, testified at the hearings that the facility would be inherently beneficial and promote the public good, by creating jobs, and adult day-care center spots, which are lacking in Bergen County, according to a Robert Wood Johnson study he cited.
Burgis also said the building, with its open landscaped area on Summit Avenue, was designed with the existing neighborhood in mind.
"I understand how some residents feel strongly that the use doesn't belong here, but in point of fact, it certainly can be designed to complement the established development pattern along Prospect Avenue,'' he testified in October, pointing to a restaurant and doctor's offices on Summit and Prospect avenues. "In addition to that, we've taken pains to try to design the Summit Avenue portion of the site so it's free of building."
Opponents, many of whom are part of the Prospect Avenue Coalition —a group of residents in 10 buildings and those who live along Summit Avenue —said having a landscaped area is not enough to sway them to support the project. They argue that zoning laws should be followed, and that the more than dozen variances Pineles is seeking should be denied.
"The people who bought homes here, not only on Prospect but all along Summit, they bought them because of the planning,'' said Jeff Mullarkey of Prospect Avenue. "To allow this flagrant disregard to the zoning laws to happen is really totally disrespectful."
They also point to Hackensack University Medical Center, which is already located nearby, and its ambulances that travel area streets, and say the neighborhood can't handle another hospital, and its traffic.
"I can't think of a place less appropriate,'' said William Schroder, who has lived on Prospect Avenue for 11 years.
Dorothy Monopoli, who lives two buildings away from the proposed site, said she fears how the facility will affect the value of her property. She said several residents on Summit Avenue have put their homes up for sale because of the proposal.
"They want to turn a prized residential area into a commercial zone,'' said Monopoli, a real estate agent.
City Attorney Joseph Zisa said he has been keeping a close eye on the hearings, and said the project is "inappropriate" for the site. "The expanding of this use into Summit Avenue, either below ground or above ground, is a very dangerous precedent,'' he said.
Pineles bought the properties where the acute care facility is proposed at a private auction, Zisa said.
The site for the hospital is also located diagonally from Prospect Towers, an 18-story apartment building where a parking garage partially collapsed last summer. The collapse caused traffic to be diverted in the area, and also led city officials to inspect underground parking garages in town to make sure they were structurally sound.
Some residents said the collapse has made them want Pineles to also submit underground water and soil testing of the site. They also said they want Pineles to detail how construction of the building and underground parking garage would proceed if he received approval and whether blasting would be part of the work.
"I don't know anything about digging garages, but if only blasting were to occur, how would they guarantee the integrity of the surrounding buildings?" asked Annette Jankowski at one of the meetings. "Because I don't believe for one moment that it wouldn't affect any of the surrounding buildings."
Pineles owns two nursing care facilities in Hackensack including a seven-floor center on Prospect Avenue, near the proposed site, which has been operating in the area for years.
E-mail: alvarado@northjersey.com
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Reader Comments (1)
1. Thursday January 20, 2011, 9:13 AM - tompaine says:
Sounds like a plan. Another hospital in the flight path for Teterboro.
