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The Takoma Park City Council will likely vote next week to renew the Washington Adventist Hospital Land Use Committee, which city leaders praised for keeping officials up to date on a proposal to build a Village of Health and Well-Being in town.

The committee was tasked with monitoring the progress of WAH as the hospital prepared to move from Takoma Park to the White Oak/Calverton area by 2013. The main focus of the group has been to keep abreast of the hospital's commitment to establishing the proposed village that will occupy the Takoma Park site after the move, informing the council of what form that facility will take, according to co-chair Anne Hollander.

"There was a laundry list that WAH presented to the committee that included many possible uses: some holistic uses, some rehab uses, a possible kidney dialysis center," she said after Monday night's council meeting. "But how you choose among them what's economically viable and what's a pipe dream, it was very hard for the committee to understand."

Originally established in 2008, the committee was to automatically end its term later this month after a period of two years, but the ongoing timeline for the hospital's relocation and the institution's continued uncertainty over what shape the village will take convinced Mayor Bruce Williams and the council to support the committee's reinstatement to another three years.

"It would be a whole lot better to have a continuing committee, even if it was necessary to kind of lay low for a little while, rather than having to start back up again [at a later date] and reinvent things and re-solicit people," Williams said.

Councilwoman Colleen Clay (Ward 2) who introduced the 2008 resolution establishing the committee, also supported the group continuing to meet, encouraging them to continue soliciting input from residents in the city as to what they would like to see left on the hospital site after the move.

The council will vote on whether or not it will officially reinstate the committee for an additional two years in a resolution at next week's meeting.

Ward 2 residents were invited to the council's third ward-specific meeting, following Ward 3 night Jan. 19 and Ward 6 night Feb. 16. About 10 residents attended the meeting, the focus of which quickly turned to traffic issues in the neighborhoods of the ward. Marguerite Cyr mentioned the increase of traffic on her street, Boyd Avenue.

"One of the solutions was to decrease traffic on Jackson [Avenue] by posting a sign that disallowed a right turn coming from the east to the west on East West Highway so during peak rush hour times you're not allowed to turn right there," she said. "It hasn't changed anything on Boyd Avenue."

She mentioned making both Elm and Jackson Avenues open to residential traffic only as a possible solution. Clay agreed but added that the city will have to find another way to address the issue because signs cannot be posted restricting traffic to neighborhood-only traffic in Maryland.

"The housing is in Prince George's County and the jobs are in Bethesda and [commuters] are driving from where the bedrooms are at to where the jobs are at," she said. "Because the junction [at Ethan Allen and Carroll avenues] is a dysfunctional intersection, ... people come through the neighborhoods."

Next Monday the council will hear a briefing from County Councilman Marc Elrich (D-At large) of Takoma Park that will likely focus on County Executive Isiah Leggett's newly released county budget and how it will impact the city's own budget. City Manager Barbara Burns Matthews is scheduled to release the city's own draft budget for 2011 later in April.