The Fredonia Planning Board agreed this week to extend by another year its approval of Brooks-TLC’s plan for a new 100,000-square-foot hospital.

“The (board) did agree to another extension as there had been no changes to the Site Plan,” Planning Board member Dave Fridmann said in an email.

“The legal team did show up to represent Brooks. There was discussion to make clear that when the hospital moves forward, there will be a second point of ingress and egress on Route 60 through a ROW (right of way) agreement with Walmart,” Fridmann added.

When originally issued in January 2019, the hospital plan included just one entry and exit, off East Main Street. Planning Board members and citizens of the community raised concerns that having only one entry would cause significant traffic problems, as the driveway will be very close to Fredonia Central School and the Route 20-60 roundabout.

Brooks-TLC added the second entry and exit point to the site plan before the Planning Board approved it in June 2019. A year-long extension of the plan was granted in 2020.

Fridmann also said that Brooks-TLC counsel Marc Romanowski “explained that although COVID had slowed all talks with state Department of Health, they were back to making plans to move forward and they had every intention of not needing another extension and hoped to start before the end of the year.”