“I’m super concerned that Smilow won’t have enough parking on site. And you have people coming for treatment. Life should be as easy as possible for them.”
Margarita Alban, P&Z chair“You are walking into this under parked,” she said. “You are already coming in maxed out, fiddling around with where you going to put the cars. Make sure people there for treatment get top priority.”
Alban suggested patients be able to pre book their parking spots on an app.
Traffic consultant for the hospital Bernie Adler replied saying, there is a trend to use Uber and Lyft for drop off.”
“But you are dealing with people who can potentially be immune compromised and they’re not going to want to get into an Uber or Lyft Think about the parking and making it customer friendly.”
Loss of Historic Stone Wall
Ms Alban said she’d also like to see the historic stone wall along Lake Ave retained.
Public Comment
Though the commission received numerous letters from residents sharing concerns about the proposal, one resident, Sheila Traub, waited 5-1/2 hours to testify.
Ms Traub testified that she was concerned about traffic and parking, and blasting of granite which might impact the foundation of Greenwich Lodge. She noted that out-of-towners get confused navigating the traffic rotaries, and that local churches, private schools, nursery schools “need the roadways at multiple times of the day.”
“You have a little historic cemetery and a major corridor for ambulances and fire trucks,” she continued.”So, all of these together really contraindicate this particular site for this particular use in order to meet the needs of the hospital and its survival. There are other sites in Greenwich.”
“I’m concerned we’re trying to force fit something here whose need is not fully and properly documented,” Traub added. “I believe the population of Greenwich will continue to go to UMass, Dana Farber, and Memorial.”
Sewer Capacity
Possibly the most important issue came up toward the end of the discussion. Ms Alban advised the applicant to get comments from the town’s sewer department, referring to issues with capacity in the main sewer line, the Horseneck line.
“You got to walk to the Sewer Dept and get their answers and find out if this will work – with the Horseneck line. Sewer capacity has been a deal stopper on other projects. Don’t come back to us until you have that conversation…I didn’t want you to keep coming back and suddenly get a big surprise from that. That could be a huge issue.”
“I’ve been mentioning that at our meetings for a year. Everybody knows,” Mr. Heagney replied.
At the end of public comment, Ms Alban said Ms Traub may have the feeling the commission was very supportive and focused on moving this forward.
“I would not have characterized it that way,” Alban said. “We are asking every question we can think of on behalf of this community.”
The application was left open and will go before ARC next week.