Council Takes Second Bite Out of Valley Apple Monday Night

The council .

We learned the council has several options it can take when the meetings conclude. Matt Rogers, Village Attorney, said the council does not have to take action.

"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.

Now that that's out of the way, another big issue will be examined by the council and all stakeholders on Monday – traffic. The planning board's traffic expert, Joe Staigar, will be back on Monday. Staigar, in his initial analysis of the impact on traffic, said he believed there would be considerable impact on the village should the $750M "Renewal" plans go through.

Later, however, he reversed course and testified that if Valley's to be believed, . North Van Dien and Linwood avenues (both county roads) would require widening with turning lanes added. Just prior to the in favor of a new "H-Zone", Staigar said he sought "constant parameters," like square footage, hospital beds, employees, that could indicate traffic patterns in his analysis.

Comparing those numbers with the monitoring of driveways, he determined that Valley's traffic flow was in line with a hospital at around 850,000 square feet—much larger than its current size.

"It's already operating as a large hospital in a small area, so expansion would make sense," he said in May of 2010.

Mayor Keith Killion, according to the agenda, will also go over the procedures and conduct for the meeting. Council members will again ask their questions of the experts, and attorneys and the public will get their opportunities as well.

The meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m. at the RHS Campus Center. It will be televised on Channel 77 (Cablevision) and will be streamed at the village's ustream.tv page.