Upper West Side residents turned out in droves at a Community Board 7 meeting Tuesday night to express opposition to Jewish Home Lifecare’s plans to build a 20-story development.
JHL, a nursing home organization, wants to move from its current Manhattan location, on 106th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, to a new site on 97th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues—right in the middle of the Park West Village housing complex.
In a room packed with more than 200 people, many local residents argued against the JHL development, leading CB7 to approve a resolution that could force a more stringent city review process of the plan.
Arnold Young, who has lived in Park West Village for about 40 years, said that when he moved in, “Park West Village was a place that had green space and open space.”
“This building will cast a shadow over our buildings,” Young said. “Forget your gardens, your beautiful flowers. They will all be gone if this is allowed.”
Bruce Nathanson, a senior vice president at JHL, defended the plan as beneficial for the community, although locals at the meeting did not take well to his assurances.
“We’re moving from one location to another within the district, reducing the size of our operation, reducing our real estate footprint, and leaving behind more community space,” Nathanson said over loud booing and yells of “that’s a lie!”
CB7 members voted overwhelmingly to resolve that there is a “scarcity of land for general community purposes” in the district, an important legal term. If the City Planning Commission decides it agrees with CB7’s advisory vote, JHL would be forced to go through a multifaceted city review process known as Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, potentially bringing its plans to a halt.
JHL spokesperson Ethan Geto, CC ’65, told Spectator that if the development is forced to do ULURP, “it’s unclear whether we’ll go through with it.” Otherwise, JHL hopes to break ground on the three-year project in early 2014, he said.
CB7 member and City Council candidate Helen Rosenthal said that “it’s imperative for the Community Board to acknowledge the weight of community feeling on this,” and that she “very proudly” supported the board’s resolution.
“This resolution gives City Planning the opportunity to look at all the different issues … in relation to schools, park space, small businesses that’s clearly there,” Rosenthal said. “By using this tool and opening up a larger review, we’ll be able to have a larger understanding.”
“I’m voting for this resolution because it’s the way the community will have a voice on this project,” board member and City Council candidate Mel Wymore said. “We need to have a public process when a large building like this comes into the neighborhood.”
State Assembly member Daniel O’Donnell, who made an appearance at the meeting, said he wrote a letter to the City Planning Commission chair urging CPC to approve the ULURP review process for the development. He told community members to make sure they weren’t just “fighting the battle but winning the war” of changing zoning rules on a larger scale.
Shelly Fine, one of the few board members to abstain from the vote rather than support the resolution, urged his colleagues to “be impartial and listen to the facts.” Fine said that there is “no way to justify” the idea that there’s not enough land for community purposes, and that if anything, more land would be available after JHL’s move.
“There has been no community agency that has requested or tried to buy this land … no need that is not being addressed,” he said.
“We really haven’t been presented with hard evidence that there’s a scarcity of land for community facilities,” said board member Jay Adolf, who voted against the resolution. “As a technical finding, we don’t have anything to base a real determination of scarcity.”
In addition to space scarcity issues, several community members were concerned that JHL’s new location would be directly adjacent to P.S. 163.
Avery Brandon, whose four-year-old child will start at P.S. 163 next fall, said she was troubled by the construction of a “20-story high-rise next door to a three-story school.”
“Bone-rattling construction noises … will make it impossible for these children to hear their teachers,” Brandon said. “Studies prove that chronic noise exposure impairs reading comprehension and long-term memory.”
“Everything about this construction project is wrong and needs to be brought to light,” she added.
Geto said that JHL was “committed to taking steps to minimize disruptions and to assure the health and safety of its neighbors during construction of the new facility.”
“We’ve been working in very close consultation with the parents association and principal,” he said. “We’ll take a number of steps to minimize or eliminate activity when kids are coming in or out of the school.”
Meeting attendees, though, said that JHL should focus its attention on its current location on 106th Street. Emily Margolis, a former assistant director of nursing at JHL’s current location, said that this location is better than the proposed one.
“There’s room for expansion on 106th Street—the plan should be there,” she said. “97th Street is a one-way designated truck route with heavy traffic … and P.S. 163 has many students who arrive on school buses.”
Geto, though, said that staying at the 106th Street location isn’t feasible.
“We can’t keep it running much longer because the physical plant is obsolescent,” Geto said, noting that several parts of the facility date to 1882, and that there have been heating problems and leaks. The need for upkeep is “draining the entire Jewish Home Lifecare system,” he said.
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