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Letter to the Editor: Helen Levitz on Lawrence Hospital's Proposed Addition

masterpenandquille

Dear Editor,

Regarding your May 18 article on the May 11 Planning Board meeting and Lawrence Hospital Center's Major Hospital Expansion proposal, we [Alger Court residents] would like to note that construction is only one aspect of our concern.  I would like to make the following clarifications:

The proposal is no longer for the Radiology Oncology Center LHC has emphasized in its marketing and press materials.  The current project is for a three-story, 42,000 sq. ft. addition, bordering a residential neighborhood, in which the new Radiation Oncology Center would occupy only one third of the added space.*  The Village's Zoning Code allows a special permit applicant (such as a hospital) to build a 5,000 sq. ft. addition. LHC is asking the Village for variances to add more than 8 times the allowed square footage as well as to build out to the sidewalk at the traffic circle and on the edge of a residential neighborhood just 15 yards away.  With respect to frontage on the street, currently our Zoning Code allows for 50 linear feet.  The LHC addition will be at least double that length on the Pondfield Road side.

LHC's neighbors are not against LHC adding a Radiology Oncology Center.  LHC has other alternatives on its campus for adding this new service, along with the requisite new equipment.  The neighbors are opposed to LHC's blurring of the vastly expanded project and marketing the proposal as if it were only a "modest addition" for a radiation therapy/cancer center.  In fact, the footprint of the proposal is ¾ of an acre** which represents 20 percent of the entire LHC campus.  Moreover, the proposed three-story addition will be constructed to support six floors and will include two new six-story elevators, in order to accommodate future expansion of the hospital.  In Westchester County this sort of project is generally allowed only in commercially zoned areas or on the campuses of institutions with very large acreage (Phelps Memorial Hospital/Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Sleepy Hollow has 69 acres.)  None of this is in keeping with the Village's Community Plan 2009.

Sincerely,
Helen Levitz
Alger Court
June 8, 2011

*LHC's April 4, 2011 Certificate of Need filing with the NYS Department of Health and the February 4, 2011 Application for a Building Permit filed with the Village of Bronxville.
**LHC permit filing with the Village states ".73 acres of disturbance."

Editor's Note: MyhometownBronxville does not fact-check statements in letters to the editor, and the opinions do not necessarily reflect the thinking of its staff.  Its objective in publishing letters to the editor is to give air to diverse thoughts and opinions of residents in the community.

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