SNCH parking plan heats up

Oceanside residents are calling on Town of Hempstead officials to stop a South Nassau Communities Hospital plan to build a parking lot, a proposal they said would create a quality-of-life "nightmare" and continue what they said is the hospital's expansion into their residential neighborhood.

About 10 residents, many of whom live on Washington Avenue, Rockville Centre Parkway and Oswald Court, raised the issue at a town meeting hosted by Town Councilman Anthony Santino at Oceanside Middle School on May 11.

The hospital plans to raze four properties it owns in the area to create more parking. Residents said they learned about the plan in February, after the hospital purchased a home at 2408 Washington Ave. that had undergone extensive renovations prior to its sale by the owner.

Because the property is still zoned residential, however, residents called on Santino and town officials to deny the hospital's request for a variance to rezone it as commercial. "They should not be allowed to get a zoning change," resident Charles Giordano said to a round of applause. "I've lived here for 25 years, and we're concerned about South Nassau taking up every parcel in the area."

An SNCH spokesman said that 55 homes were sent notices in early April about the plan, which would begin with the demolition of four of the hospital's properties: 197 and 201 Oswald Court, 208 Merrick Road and the Washington Avenue home. Residents were told that razing the homes would take roughly five weeks.

The hospital maintains that the parking lot would alleviate parking issues in the community, long a source of contention among residents, with hospital visitors, doctors and staff competing for parking spaces along residential streets.

In the notices, the hospital wrote: "In order to create more parking, the hospital will raze four of its hospital-owned properties. We would like to assure you that during this process, all the properties will be appropriately secured and health standards will be strictly adhered to for the removal of building materials from these sites."

Residents told Santino that the development would not only destroy the neighborhood's character, it would create a slew of traffic and safety issues, along with noise and loitering. Additionally, they said, it would reduce property values in the area and decrease tax revenues.

Residents said that the hospital needs to understand where its boundaries end and the residential community begins. "It's a small residential neighborhood and they're trying to make it into North Shore LIJ," said Dan Brown of Rockville Centre Parkway. "There's no space for them to extend except into a residential area. Our concern is that they want to buy all the properties on one side of Washington Avenue and make that a parking lot. There's only six or seven homes left."

After the meeting, Giordano elaborated on why residents are so irate over the plan, which is meant to address parking issues. "We've put up with the parking issues in the past because we love our little neighborhood," he said. "What we don't want them to do is to knock down this home and put a parking lot there. We don't want them spreading out onto Washington. We're afraid of the encroaching domino effect."

Santino said that the hospital has not yet filed an application with the town for a change of zone. He explained that he could not judge the project at this point, and that the town cannot intervene in the hospital's purchasing of residential property. What the town does have, he said, is a say in zoning. "I can assure you that the town board, and myself, will be listening very closely to residents," Santino said.

Residents said they have requested a meeting with hospital officials but have not received a response. Santino said he would work to arrange a meeting. A public hearing would also take place once the hospital files a zone-change request.

In a statement, South Nassau Communities Hospital said: "The new parking area will be complemented by landscaping that is consistent with South Nassau’s high standards and add to the aesthetics of the community. We assure the community that during the project South Nassau will comply fully with the Town of Hempstead’s code requirements and make every effort to limit any inconvenience to our patients, employees, visitors and neighbors." The statement adds that the next phase of the project includes submitting a request to the Town of Hempstead for rezoning of the properties and, once approved, the actual construction.

Residents, however, said they are skeptical of the plan.

"You're going to destroy a very viable neighborhood," resident John Byrnes said

at the meeting.

Another resident, Stacey Esposito, who said she is a single mother struggling to pay taxes, asked Santino if he would like looking at a parking lot across the street from his home. "I want my kids to be safe," said Esposito, adding that a parking lot would affect the safety of her kids when they walk to School No. 5 by creating additional traffic in the area. "We moved to Oceanside for the neighborhood, not to live next to a parking lot."

Neighbors also expressed their frustration with the appearance of the vacant properties, and said they were concerned about asbestos in the homes that would be demolished. Santino said that the properties would be monitored to see if they met all safety requirements.

According to residents and a hospital spokesman, the two houses on Oswald Court were home to visiting hospital employees. In February 2009, Brown and others said, they were given assurances by the hospital that the homes would remain intact, as specified in a notice of a public hearing residents received. In a copy of the notice obtained by the Herald, the hospital informed residents that it filed an application with the town to have its main campus, which includes the homes, zoned entirely as a business district, but that the zoning application "involves no new improvements or construction."

In the past, residents said, the hospital used homes it purchased in the area to house doctors or nurses. Etta Wesler said she sold her home, at 2408 Washington Ave., with the understanding that it would be used to house hospital staff. "I had no idea they were going to do this," said Wesler, who was not at the meeting. "We thought they would use it for employees. It's just so heartbreaking what they're doing. I had new granite counter tops in the kitchen put in, and one day I saw [workers] carrying the granite out. That's when I realized they were tearing it down."

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