Though two major sides in a land use and legal battle dating back two-plus years have worked hard to reach an agreement, a neighbor whose home directly abuts the Valley Road property at the center of the dispute—who also sits on the Planning & Zoning Commission—appears not to be satisfied, following comments made at a public meeting this week.
It’s been three years since Silver Hill Hospital purchased the 1998-built Colonial at 225 Valley Road for $2.5 million, tax records show. Months later, the psychiatric hospital applied to P&Z for site plan and special permit approval in order to renovate and use it as a residential medical treatment facility.
P&Z in November 2013 denied the application by a 6-3 vote. Three weeks later, the hospital filed a lawsuit claiming P&Z acted “arbitrarily” and “illegally” in doing so. The town in April denied those claims.
Yet through these intervening months, hospital representatives led by President and Medical Director Dr. Sigurd Ackerman have been meeting a group called the Silvermine River Neighborhood Association or “SRNA,” to hammer out a mutually acceptable plan.
On Tuesday, an attorney representing the hospital—Michael Sweeney of Carmody, Torrance, Sandak & Hennessey LLP—described for P&Z the tenets of that hard-won agreement, such as that Silver Hill will not expand its physical campus for 50 years, will not use a Valley Road building it owns for hospital use and will pay money to charities should too many of its patients wander off or otherwise leave the facility prior to the end of their planned stay.
“I do want to make the point that a lot of work has gone into this,” Sweeney told P&Z during a regular meeting, held in the Town Hall Meeting Room, as dozens of the hospital’s neighbors looked on.
“The neighborhood group has come together and reached a rapport with Silver Hill, that I think encompasses all the issues they were concerned about, and absent something that you think we may have missed, we would like it [the agreement] to be left alone as much as possible. Of course we know your role and your function. I think if you step back and look at this agreement, you will find that it is light years more stringent than I think even this commission was thinking of imposing even two ago. I think it gives great certainty to the neighborhood and it reflects the great efforts made by the SRNA and Dr. Ackerman to come up with a process that does not just solve problems that come up now but it is also a forward-looking document.”
Yet one key neighbor, P&Z Commissioner Kent Turner, is not part of the agreement and so the commission (minus Turner, who recused himself), while praising both sides for the work done so far, instructed Sweeney and his counterpart to work toward an acceptable middle ground.
Specifically, Silver Hill is seeking a special permit to renovate and use the dwelling at 225 Valley Road—which is on the east side of the street, opposite the hospital’s main campus—for a new, medical use (see page 45 of the Zoning Regulations here), as well as approval for a site plan application (page 155 of the regs). Plans call for the dwelling to house eight patients—with a study to be converted into a bedroom and three garage bays into two more bedrooms and a sitting room. Sweeney said at Tuesday’s meeting that the renovation would amount to creating an 8-bedroom home out of what had been a 5-bedroom home.
Turner—who lives directly north of 225 Valley Road—had testified at an initial public hearing in May 2013 that “he is working out a mitigation plan with the applicant,” the minutes from that meeting say.
Though that plan never seems to have materialized, it’s critical that every option be explored between the hospital and Turners before the commission is forced to make a decision that necessarily would disappoint one or both parties, commissioners said.
“One of the neighbors, Mr. Turner, whose home I believe is closest to the property that was acquired by Silver Hill, is not part of the agreement. That’s unfortunate,” Commissioner Dick Ward said. “Too bad that that didn’t get worked out earlier, but the agreement does refer to screening of certain precise properties and of course it does not include anything for Mr. Turner because he was not a party to the discussion.”
Sweeney replied that the hospital is prepared to honor a comprehensive screening plan that includes landscaping as well as fencing with architectural cut-outs that had been presented to the Turners two years ago. In so many words, Sweeney also relayed his feeling that the Turners and their lawyer had not done all they could to meet the hospital halfway in these past several months.
P&Z Chairman John Goodwin encouraged both sides to view past disagreements as “water under the bridge” in order to “pull out a clean sheet of paper” and hammer out an acceptable plan.
Sweeney and Town Attorney Ira Bloom, who addressed P&Z on the Silver Hill case during an executive session prior to the public meeting, both indicated that timing was a factor because of pending litigation.
Goodwin suggested that the matter be continued to P&Z’s Oct. 27 meeting and the commission voted unanimously to do so.
During the meeting, one neighbor and member of SRNA who helped lead that group, Jeff Williams of Valley Road, commended Town Planner Steve Kleppin for his diligence, commitment and gently guiding hand at meetings attended by both parties. Williams said the talks brought the neighbors a deeper understanding of the hospital’s operations, and though he noted that “neither party is completely satisfied with the outcome,” he added, “I guess that is the sign of a good agreement.”
“We are generally pleased with what has been crafted, and although I do not want to endorse every little piece of the application that Silver Hill is making—that would be in appropriate—insofar as their application reflects our settlement agreement, I am pleased and proud to have been part of the effort to resolve what for all of us have been difficult issues,” Williams said.
Bloom indicated in that the Turners had expressed an interest to the town to hammer out an agreement with the hospital.
Though “they are not included in this particular stipulation,” Bloom said that his firm “did receive letter from Mrs. Turner on her behalf and her husband’s behalf and she asked to be included now in the agreement and she would like to have a reasonable discussion with Silver Hill and work out conditions that would be mutually acceptable.”
“And she asked for some additional time to do that—frankly that probably would be the positive thing to do, to allow the additional time, though I must say we do not have that much time here in this case, it is under the supervision of the court, it is an old case so I think the presiding judge will want this thing moved expeditiously, but some additional time probably would be in order, to have Silver Hill address any concerns of the attorneys.”