History Lessons: Council Takes First Bite at 'H-Zone' Ordinance

The first of the hotly anticipated Valley Hospital "H-Zone" hearings in front of the village council focused on history and process – or, according to some, a lack of real process.

Valley has said it needs to modernize and its doubling of size would help alleviate overcrowding while also meeting accepted standards by transitioning to single-occupancy rooms. Its $750 million "Renewal" plan would see the demolition and construction of several buildings over a vague period of time and has divided Ridgewood.

"Stop Valley" residents are concerned with quality of life, traffic, educational issues, along with questions of legal precedent. And they've been quite vocal about it over the past half decade. The Master Plan was amended by the planning board after nearly 40 hearings over a four-year span, culminating in a lawsuit by resident group Concerned Residents of Ridgewood and a final nudge to the council for the final vote.

Residents from both sides, which was divided as supporters of the "Renewal" on the right and objectors to the left at RHS's Campus Center, spoke passionately on Tuesday night. It comes as no surprise.

Dr. Rashid Baddoura, an ER physician at Valley, said Valley would not survive without the proposed changes. "The changes that are coming down through health care are immense," he said.

Baddoura added that there was as much opposition when Valley requested a 7,000 square foot expansion for a technology move as there is now. "It's deja vu for me," he said. "The same arguments were heard for 7,000 square feet. One tiny corner in the ER . . ." The village granted permission to Valley and, said Baddoura, that helped save lives.

"There is no choice in the matter," he said. "Valley has to modernize."

Across the aisle, residents said Valley has misrepresented facts and lacks any real concern for residents of the tight B.F./Travell East Side neighborhood.

"If Valley really cared about our opinions, why didn't they ask us four years ago," said Jeanette LaRocco, citing Valley's recent survey initiative. "If they cared about the community and our children they wouldn't be doubling the size of the hospital." 

Amid questions on process and future procedure from members of the council, Village Attorney Matt Rogers outlined the options the council can take with the proposed $750 million 1.2 million square foot "Renewal" expansion.

Council's legal options

"The municipal land use law does not require the council to take any action on the ordinance that had been prepared at the direction of the planning board," said Rogers. "So we can go through these hearings, we can decide at the end of the hearings to introduce that ordinance and have a public hearing once we introduce it. And if we do that we can decide to either approve it, amend it and change it..."

The council could also scrap the ordinance presented and develop a new one that is inconsistent with the amendment to the Master Plan. A super-majority of the council (3 votes) would have to agree to take an action that is inconsistent with the amendment made and identify the reasons they believe it's sound from a zoning and planning perspective.

"The third issue that was not addressed," said John Lamb, the attorney representing Concerned Residents of Ridgewood, "is that this council can do nothing."

"They can simply have a proposed ordinance and decide they're simply not going to introduce it . . . there's no standard."

With a total of 1.3 million square feet of total building planned facing three sides of residential homes as well as a middle school, Lamb said this expansion would eclipse the size of Paramus Park Mall.

"And I certainly believe that no one could rationally believe that you should put Paramus Park Mall – or a facility that large – surrounded by three single-family residential zones and a school," he said. Resident Kathy Benson added that the parking garage is not even included in the square footage Valley is presenting.

At 190,000 square feet, Benson said, it would be the second largest building in Ridgewood, after Valley.

Questions of Planning board decision

The council fired question after question at Village Planner Blais Brancheau on Tuesday night, the first of seven meetings. Council members were chiefly concerned with the process the planning board took, some wondering aloud if there was enough scrutiny done.

Councilwoman Bernadette Walsh questioned the first two planning board meetings made in January of 2007, in which Valley was the only presenter, and featured some "interesting" statements. She asked if there was verification by the village as to the validity of those remarks.

"Or was it taken at face value?" she asked.

"I think the board wanted to understand what it was presented with," Brancheau responded, adding he didn't recall exactly what happened at those first two meetings.

Lamb also said the planning board's review of similar hospitals as comparisons for study, was not apt. "Only one of the 21 hospitals...actually had similar characteristics," he said.

The Concerned Residents of Ridgewood have maintained that the planning board appeared tasked to see how to pass the hospital expansion plans without critically examining if it should be passed.

The planning board's hospital consultant, Ray Skorupa, testified during the initial hearings that the size proposed for a 454-bed hospital was not unusual by today's standard.

Still, Councilman Stephen Wellinghorst appeared skeptical.

He asked Tuesday night if the consultant took into consideration the size of the 15-acre campus. Brancheau did not have an answer.

Gene Cornell, head of pro-expansion support group Ridgewood Residents for Valley, now boasting 625 members, said it's clear the hospital must expand. "We're treating today's patients in a building designed in 1980. Our great advances in medicine require that infrastructure deliver the necessary care."

He maintained traffic to the hospital would not increase because bed counts are largely unchanged and additional staff would be minimal. If Ridgewood is complacent, Valley could become like Pascack Valley, he said. That Valley competitor closed after massive financial trouble a few years ago. Valley has since attempted to stop Pascack Valley Hospital from reopening, arguing there are too many beds already in Bergen County.

Approval means carte blanche for Valley?

Both council members and residents appeared concerned that an approval of the ordinance presented would give the hospital “carte blanche” to build whatever it wanted. Hospitals are considered under Municipal Land Use Law to be "inherently beneficial" and in many applications simply have to prove its changes would do more good than harm for the public.

A skilled land use attorney can easily navigate those zoning waters.

"It doesn't mean however that it's carte blanche, they can do anything they want," Brancheau said, pointing to the ordinance setting height limits, area lot coverage, set backs, as well as intensity of use restrictions and floor to area (FAR) conditions as ways to minimize concerns to residents that Valley could do anything once construction starts. 

He admitted there would be "some" leeway Valley would have in construction should the ordinance be passed. 

Unfortunately, the precedent has been ignored, Lamb said.

He testified that the 1993 council rejected a Valley site plan application, saying it was "incongruous" and would affect neighbors. That plan was an overall increase of 25 percent, a fraction of over 100 percent proposed. The planning board, he continued, in 2006 wanted to limit Valley's growth to 15-20 percent. Regulating intensity of use won't work, according to the attorney. The majority of changes are bulk and lot regulations, he said, which are easy to change for an institution like Valley.

"There's no hard-fast rule that they can't go over 454 beds," he said. "It doesn't work. This draft ordinance, in my opinion, is a clear piece of spot zoning."

Even if the council approves the ordinance, the hospital would still need site plan approval to proceed with the project, which would then require a developer's agreement. The state would also need to approve an expansion. The county too would have to sign off on any road widening to Linwood and Van Dien avenues.

Why not go through the zoning board like virtually every other property owner?

Several council members inquired as to why Valley didn't go through the normal course and apply for variance through the zoning board of adjustments. Brancheau – who spoke at length of the history of Valley's various expansion efforts, which included earlier rejected layout plans to expand on its existing campus as well as alternate plans like an entirely new 30-acre campus or a split campus – said it was inefficient to go through the zoning board and against better planning practices.

In return, Councilman Paul Aronsohn quipped, to the laughter and clapping of anti-expansion supporters: "Respectfully, this hasn't been the most efficient process either."

In answering Aronsohn's question, Valley attorney Charles Collins said the hospital would essentially be "re-legislating" if it were to try to go for variances with such an "outdated" ordinance. The zoning regulations were enacted in 1960s and remain, he said.

It wasn't easy for the planning board, Brancheau said, which had to "balance" what was good and "unavoidable bad things."

"But the board determined that it was impossible to completely eliminate the negative aspects or this. So what its focus was was largely on mitigating those as much as possible."

Valley attorney: Yes, there will be problems for neighbors but our infrastructure is completely outdated

Collins asked the village help Valley "meet its needs," which he said is "mostly [in] technological requirements."

"Our infrastructure is outdated," he said. It needs more space for diagnostic and therapeutic equipment. According to the long-time attorney, Valley also needs more electrical service, rooms with higher ceilings, more duct work and a layout that allow for open spaces, which column spacing now prevents. 

Plus, its rooms are undersized, Collins said. He reported that the two-bedded rooms require that one bed be moved into the hallway to get another patient by, should they need the bathroom.

"That's not a satisfactory situation, not is it something that any hospital should tolerate," he said. Single patient rooms cut down on medical mistakes, are more sterile, and have a therapeutic benefit in privacy and family visits, he said.

Collins also claimed the hospital has made tremendous concessions since its original draft, though it's roughly the same expansion size just reoriented on the recommendation of the planning board's hospital planning consultant, Ray Skorupa.

"Unfortunately, the modernization that Mr. Gould [the former spokesman of CRR] recognized as important does carry with it burdens," Collins said. "We are not going to appear before you and deny the fact that there are burdens. No one denies the special inconvenience and disruption that the neighbors of the hospital will experience if this project goes forward."

But larger safety and health issues trump those "inconveniences" and "disruptions," Collins said. "We still believe the proposed changes are vital to the continued ability to provide quality health care to the community," he testified.

Could this be the last expansion?

Offering an anecdote, a past member of the planning board questioned Collins during another hearing for expansion decades ago: "Is this it for the hospital?" he asked.

"I said 'I am not a position to say that to you,'" Collins said. Looking at the council, he remarked: "And I'll be honest with you, I'm not in the position to say that with you now tonight."