By JOSEPH KELLARD
The Town of Hempstead Zoning Board of Appeals last week granted approval to the next phase of the hospital's 10-year expansion plan, dubbed the Renaissance Project.
The project's major feature is a five-story wing to be built in front of the hospital's current front entrance on Oswald Court. The project will also include a 1,200-square-foot expansion to the emergency unit's waiting room, 260 additional spaces in the parking lot east of One Health Way, six additional parking spaces on south Oswald Court (requiring that a house owned by the hospital be demolished), and a 90-space parking lot on Oceanside Road near the corner of Nassau Parkway (requiring that three houses owned by SNCH be demolished).
The zoning board's notice of decision concluded that SNCH's proposal is not expected to result in any "significant adverse" impacts on the environment, air quality, aesthetic resources or traffic, which are among the concerns raised by opponents of the project.
"We are pleased that the zoning board has granted our request to proceed with the North Addition Project," said Joseph Quagliata, president of SNCH.
At the zoning board hearing on April 16, both Quagliata and Andrew Triolo, assistant vice president of design, development and construction, told the zoning board that the last major additions to the hospital were made during the early 1970s. Due to changes in building codes, such as those required by the Americans with Disabilities Act, exponential growth in technology and updated hospital standards, which necessitate larger and more single-patient rooms, and newer demands, such as preparedness for bio-terrorism, it is "essential" that the hospital expand, they testified.
The new wing, featuring an enlarged lobby, conference center and maternity, patient-care and behavioral-health units, would not increase the number of beds SNCH currently provides, but would instead serve to condense and unite these and other units that are scattered throughout the hospital, Quagliata said.
Led by Robert Reilly, a resident of Washington Avenue, the opposition expressed concerns mainly about the project's negative impact on traffic congestion, the aesthetics of the surrounding community, air quality and noise affecting schoolchildren who attend neighboring School 5, and the property values of homes.
The zoning board's notice of decision stated, "The proposed action is not expected to increase significantly the amount of traffic and therefore the amount of pollutants associated with increased vehicle traffic," and that the project would have no significant impact environmentally as a result of objectionable odors, noise or vibration.
As to the aesthetic impact of the five-floor north wing, the decision read, "The proposed action would not result in the hospital gaining stories overall, but would unify some of the multiple roof heights to the existing five-story height," and that along with the proposed landscaping "would be in character with the existing aesthetic character of the hospital campus and the surrounding community."
The decision, however, did not include mention of the proposal's potential impact on the property values of neighboring homes.
"All those opposed to the expansion were not against having a hospital in the neighborhood," Reilly said. "One of their concerns was the commercialization of a residential area. In recent years the hospital has taken over many tax-producing properties, and as a non-profit hospital, that loss of school and general revenue taxes falls upon the members of this community."
Part of a 10-year expansion plan begun in 1998, SNCH's Renaissance Project is expected to take between 24 and 30 months to complete, and the hospital expects to begin construction in September, starting with the parking sites and ending with the new wing.
