HALFMOON — After hearing overwhelming support Tuesday night from a standing-room-only crowd of residents, the Halfmoon Town Board voted unanimously to grant a zoning change for the site of a proposed Halfmoon hospital.

About 75 residents of the Halfmoon-Clifton Park area applauded supporters of a hospital who spoke at a public hearing about the need for a southern Saratoga County emergency facility in Halfmoon. Several were parents of children who said they need an emergency room closer to home than Albany, Saratoga or Schenectady, where the largest regional hospitals are now located.

“I have had a 16-year-old who had to go all the way to St. Peter’s [Hospital] at 3 a.m., and it was the longest 35-minute trip of my life,” Jeff Brooks of Halfmoon said. “We need a trauma facility. We need it now.”

John Wasielewski has been an emergency medical technician with the Clifton Park-Halfmoon Ambulance Corps since 1982 and said there’s no assurance ambulances will get to regional hospitals in under 30 minutes, even with critical patients.

“Even if the hospitals are about 15 miles away, if you try to get down the Northway, even with our sirens on, it’s a nightmare,” Wasielewski said. “We then have to wait inside the hospitals, and meanwhile other calls are coming in from back in Halfmoon that we have to wait on because we’re stuck in Albany. We need this hospital here.”

Other residents said the project could develop a reputation for Halfmoon that it is the place for health care and progressive research.

“This would be a beacon for our community,” Paul Rickfort of Grooms Road said. “Everyone should recognize that this hospital is a jewel being held out to us and something that will help Halfmoon make their mark in the county.”

The proposed Halfmoon Healthcare and Biomedical Facilities complex on an 82-acre parcel of land on the south side of Route 146 would feature a 225,000-square-foot, five-floor hospital as the first building in the complex. The site was previously zoned for agricultural or residential use only.

Hospital developer attorney Kevin Dailey said the facility, which is estimated to cost $120 million to build, could serve about 111,000 people from the southern Saratoga County area. Project discussions with the Planning Board and Town Board have been under way for two years, but Tuesday night was the first time residents were given a chance to share their views.

Bob Maxwell said he moved out of Halfmoon because there was no acute-care facility nearby.

“There are so many young people here now, and I’d hate to see them not have a place to go like I did,” Maxwell said.

Some people said a project just announced by Saratoga Hospital to locate a $350 million satellite health care campus in Malta could be a better location than Halfmoon for county residents.

“Malta has invested in roundabouts to handle traffic, and Exit 12 [of the Northway] isn’t that far away,” said Mark McBride, who lives in Halfmoon but teaches in Ballston Spa.

Halfmoon resident Fred Bahr presented a petition with signatures from his neighbors living near the proposed site, asking the board to vote down the project because it would ruin the rural quality of life in Halfmoon.

“I moved to this area well aware of where hospitals were and the drive times, and if this goes through, we could end up with traffic at the same level as on routes 146 and 9 in Clifton Park,” Bahr said. “The town should not endorse a zoning change to accommodate a poorly situated hospital.”

Three residents asked about how the Town Board would keep noise, traffic and light pollution to a minimum, as well as about the future possibility of biomedical waste being generated by the research facilities proposed for a later stage in the medical complex.

“This zoning change does not designate specific uses, just a general hospital use, and each step ahead in the plans will be subject to site plan review,” town Supervisor Mindy Wormuth said. “All these matters will be discussed before approvals are given to any buildings in the complex.”

Some observers have pointed out the potential conflict between the Saratoga Hospital project in Malta and the Halfmoon project, located about 10 miles from one another. But Town Board member Walter Polak dismissed any speculation that decisions by his board will be based on any plans by other municipalities.

“Our decision will be based on serving our community, not on politics,” Polak said. “If Malta brings a hospital to town, that’s great, but I’m not going to deny our citizens what they need. We need this hospital; people are asking for it, and we’re going to give them that.”

The Halfmoon hospital does not yet have the backing of an established hospital to serve as its sponsor, but Dailey said that now that this major hurdle has been cleared, he’ll be offering that partnership to area facilities.

“My next step is to call and visit with each and all of the local hospitals,” Dailey said. “Now they might see the enormous support of this project.”