Valley Hearings Resume Tonight at Larger Venue

A group opposing a plan by Valley Hospital to expand its floor space to nearly a million square feet will continue testimony Monday night before the Ridgewood Planning Board, after an abrupt postponement of a meeting last month put the group's first presentation on hold.

Concerned Residents of Ridgewood began testifying before the planning board Aug. 20, but the presentation was cut short after fire officials determined that the crowd exceeded the 100-person standing capacity of the Sydney Stoldt Court Room at Village Hall.

Officials indicated at the time that attendance of prior meetings at larger venues had been sparse, and that the board did not expect the high turnout for the meeting. According to CRR, the group's membership numbered 150 residents at the time.

CRR had planned to present documents submitted by Valley during its suit to block the purchase of Pascack Valley Hospital by Hackensack University Medical Center. During the suit, the hospital argued that the HUMC expansion would exceed demand and hurt the local healthcare market.

Valley's attorneys objected to that line of argument, calling it irrelevant to the current proposal before the board. Representatives of the hospital will have the opportunity to cross-examine CRR witnesses during the hearing Monday night.

The second proposal for a Valley expansion, submitted to the board in February, modestly scales down an expansion to 1.17 million square feet voted down by the council in 2011 to an expansion to 910,000 square feet, maintaining the bed count from the original proposal at 454.

The planning board is scheduled to hear testimony from CRR and cross examination in back-to-back meetings Monday and Tuesday night. Both meetings begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Benjamin Franklin Middle School auditorium.