Montefiore presents new plan to community board

Updated on Nov. 7.

Representatives from Montefiore Medical Center returned to Community Board (CB) 8 on Monday to present new parking plans for their proposed facility on Riverdale Avenue. 

But the revamp was not enough to appease staunch opponents of the plan. Almost 100 people attended the board’s Land Use Committee meeting, many of whom were vocal in their rejection of the facility in its entirety, regardless of the alterations.  

“This is the wrong place for that building,” said Riverdale resident Jim Grossman as he spoke before the crowd.  “It’s impossible for that location to accommodate that many people without destroying the neighborhood.” 

Brian Newman, an architect  hired by project developer Simone Development Companies, presented the update, which included three floors of parking garages — already proposed in a previous plan — with 100 spaces total. New to the plan were five additional spaces set aside at street level on the premises for drop-offs; as patients drove into the facility, their cars would be parked by parking attendants. 

Committee members remained skeptical, airing fears that the deluge of cars would back out into the street, where there were already issues with double-parked cars and drivers making U-Turns. 

Mr. Newman pointed out that in some of Montefiore’s facilities, cars are driven up to the second or third floors of the garage upon entering the premises, eliminating the issue of cars lining up and clogging the street. 

But Land Use Committee Chairman Charles Moerdler chastised the group for failing to conduct a traffic study, adding that he had yet to see another group who had gotten so far in its planning without having a sense of where they were going. 

“Parking in that neighborhood is a disaster,” he said. “It seems to me that it would behoove you to do that sooner rather than later.”