Need for Critical Pediatric Care Impetus for Sunshine Home’s Project

When the New Castle Zoning Board of Appeals reconvenes next Monday night, comments regarding a hydrology study on the Sunshine Children’s Home and Rebab Center’s property is expected to be the focus of discussion on the project.

Similar to previous public forums, the session will likely feature impassioned statements from speakers on both sides of the issue – those who see a 128,000-square foot addition to the pediatric nursing facility on Spring Valley Road as excessive and intrusive and supporters who desperately want to see services for medically complex children expanded because of a severe shortage of similar facilities in New York State.

What has gone largely unseen away from the almost monthly hearings that have occurred since spring is the toll that the often blunt public debate has had on the families of the children who call Sunshine their home.

Linda Mosiello, a registered nurse who serves as director of Sunshine Children’s Home, said the extended review process and negative comments surrounding two variances, which would allow the facility to expand from its current 54-child capacity to 122, reached a point where staff members asked to attend and speak on its behalf at the October hearing. The decision was to try and bring more balance to the comments that has also compared an expanded Sunshine Children’s Home to a Walmart along with the environmental and traffic concerns.

“It’s been so upsetting for families to have to listen to,” Mosiello said. “We’ve tried to shield it a little bit from the families because we’re talking about their children. Everybody has talked about their homes and property values and the dog park. It’s their kids.”

While one of the key issues that has not been addressed is a wetland near the property and the apparently changing conditions at the site, some of the previous comments during the months of discussion has questioned the need for such a significant expansion. Recently, there have been overtures from opponents appealing to Sunshine representatives to compromise on the expansion.

Mosiello said the 122-child capacity was arrived at when considering the need regionally. There’s a waiting list that routinely approaches 70 children and many families have to travel for hours to similar facilities in New Jersey or Connecticut when there is no space. One family who has a child at Sunshine Children’s Home, one of only nine pediatric nursing homes in the state according to its application, commutes regularly from Albany, highlighting the acute shortage of the highly specialized care in New York, Mosiello said.

“I know that there is a real need for it,” she said. “I get the calls from parents.”

Westchester’s two other pediatric nursing facilities, St. Mary’s and Elizabeth Seton Pediatric Center, both in Yonkers, are also in the process of expanding. Sarra Young, Elizabeth Seton’s communications coordinator, said the 137-child facility broke ground last Wednesday on its expansion for an additional 32 beds for ventilator-dependent children, bringing that number up to 50 children. It is expected to open in early 2017.

Furthermore, both Yonkers facilities are located in residential neighborhoods. Suggestions that Sunshine should move to a medical complex or industrial park are off-base, Mosiello said. Virtually all nursing homes, whether for children or adults, have been placed in residential zones for a reason.

“Places that are pediatric specialized nursing facilities have taken a critical care-level of service and turn it into a home-like environment that allows the child to stay there and get stronger, hopefully, each day,” Mosiello said.

Although many of the public comments have been in opposition to the current expansion proposal, Sunshine has supporters in the area.

Stephen Jenney, who lives near the facility on the Ossining side, said Spring Valley Road has little traffic and will be able to handle whatever increase. Other approaches, such as Route 9A, are designed to handle truck traffic during construction, he said.

He said he believes that much of the negative comments are a result of the not-in-my-backyard syndrome.

“These people (at Sunshine) are trying to make a facility that’s much better,” said Jenney who has been a longtime Ossining Volunteer Ambulance Corps volunteer. “They’re not trying to make it like a mecca. They’re trying to make it as good as they can.”

Briarcliff Manor realtor Philip Faranda said in his estimation there’s “not much of a concern” that neighboring property values will plummet should Sunshine receive its approvals. Faranda, who said that supporting Sunshine Children’s Home is bad echoed Jenney’s thoughts that arguments against the project are being created.

“The argument that it’s not the right setting is because it’s near them,” he said.