A rendering of the nursing home.
Last week, a New York state appeals court affirmed the state Health Department’s decision to let Jewish Home Lifecare build a new 20-story nursing home on 97th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues. It was a major roadblock, though it may not be the last one for the long-delayed project.
The ruling overturns a judge’s decision to stop the project because she thought the Health Department hadn’t done a proper review of issues like the lead contamination in the soil and construction noise impacts.
Jewish Home Lifecare, now on 106th Street, has been trying for years to build a new modern nursing home, but was stymied first by the real estate market and then by neighbors upset about the construction plans. Parents at adjacent PS 163 and neighbors in nearby buildings said the project will cause too much environmental harm, release toxic materials into the air, and disrupt learning. They sued the Health Department after its analysis gave Jewish Home the green light to start building.
Martin Rosenblatt, one of the opponents, said they plan to appeal last week’s ruling. “It’s a momentary loss but it doesn’t settle the game.”
Opponents have also fought the project on other grounds, including a zoning issue. They have succeeded in delaying the project, which had been expected to break ground in 2014.
Jewish Home has countered that they’ve been diligent about addressing the safety and health concerns, adopting standards that “go well beyond standard industry construction mitigations.”
“As a mission-driven nonprofit healthcare organization, Jewish Home is committed to building in the safest and most responsible manner,” said JHL Senior VP Bruce Nathanson in a statement.
Asked for a new timeline for the project, a Jewish Home rep said they’ll have to wait until the end of legal proceedings.
“JHL is poised to jump-start construction as soon as the litigation process concludes. We estimate that it will take approximately 30 months from the start of construction until occupancy of the new skilled nursing facility.”
I just hope in the end the Jewish Home can build this new nursing home/assisted living. Living in NY means there is always going to be construction in your backyard. That’s the reality and it will ultimately be a nice structure and a necessary one. Meanwhile the open land that is there is an eye sore, full of junk and garbage. This is one of the aspects of living in an urban setting.
A 20-story building for the sick and elderly on this crowded congested block will simply be a Rikers Island. Shame on JHL as they could build a state-of-the-art replacement at their current location on 106 Street. I will continue to oppose and work with neighbors to block this misguided and dangerous construction.
While they are building your hypothetical replacement on 106th, what would happen to the people who are currently living there?
“Dangerous”? As in we’ve never built anything this high in the city and who knows what might happen as you approach heaven? You don’t help your credibility with such hyperbole.
Huh?
They are building a Riker’s Island? How so? What is so misguided and dangerous about building on an empty parking lot in an area with great resources for the elderly?
If you are going to fight this, at least come up with some good reasons.
they have plenty of space on 106th street to build a state of the art building where ambulances can access the building from the east or west.
Lets not be fooled all they want to do is sell off the huge plot of land on west 106th for Market rate housing. You can be assured it wont be for the poorer working class citizens in this neighborhood. why isn’t Mayor De Blasio building more for this sector that is so underrepresented in the west side housing stock at this time.
I’m confused. If all they want to do is sell off the 106th street property – ummm, wouldn’t a location on West 97th Street have a higher real estate value than 106th Street? The difference in price per square foot is astounding. When people have poorly thought out reasons for supporting or blocking things, it is a setback for us all.
NIMBY run amok. Hooray for JHL.
The Folks who run JHL,a HEALTH FACILITY, could not care less
that they want to build on a lot loaded with toxins including Lead, Arsenic and other poisons, thirty feet from a public school, and surrounded by high rise residential buildings with more young children, elderly people and others with series health issues such as cancer. Where is their concern for health? JHL itself will increasingly over time house the wealthier folks who can pay, and less for poorer people.
What hypocrisy!!
Crazy that there is a guy with the same name quoted in the article! You do realize that buildings go up in NYC all the time and it does not create a toxic plume. I’m pretty good on that fact. Also if you were really concerned about the health of those attending PS 163 1. Convert from #6 oil to natural gas 2. Stop having the kids arrive by diesel burning school buses. The largest consumer of #6 fuel oil and consequently polluter via fossil fuels is the NYC school system. Fix your own issue before you attack someone else.
Andrew does not know that I have been working on construction issues for over thirty years, and that I was a lead
investigator after 9/11at Ground Zero. If Andrew would like
I can send this publication a photo of a massive toxic plume that took place when the Whole Foods Complex and buildings were being constructed. Also, Andrew may not know that
the retaining wall collapsed behind 784 Columbus Ave causing a partial evacuation of the building,
A little off topic but Natural Gas (Methane) is not the cure for pollution. Although Natural Gas does indeed burn much cleaner than most other fossil fuels the molecule of methane when unburned is ten times worse than CO2 for matters related to the green house effect. Unfortunately for us all, natural gas extraction (particularly fracking) leaks considerable and impossible to measure amounts to the atmosphere. The same goes for distribution of the gas. So, although the gas itself burns extremely clean it’s extraction and distribution systems present a large contribution to climate change.
Back on topic. In reality the toxins and pollutants that most people are concerned with are manageable as long as the Contractor and the City are diligent with appropriate means and methods. The real hazard to the PS163 community is the noise that will be generated only a few short feet away from the school building. The construction will require blasting, and although the Contractor promised to erect a sound wall, being so close to the construction site it won’t do much to prevent disruption in their classrooms. Aside from blasting, erecting a 20 story building involves construction vehicles w/ back up alarms coming in and out all day. Loud generators, impact tools, grinding and welding, etc., etc. You get the point.
The sound wall cannot extend the full elevation of the new building hence providing only very limited sound attenuation to the school. Unfortunately PS163 is up against two to three years of disruptive noise in their classrooms. Grades will probably falter and kids will get the short end of the stick here.
Martin,
The soil is no different on 97th street than on any other block in Manhattan. Those are facts; clearly written in the report and backed up by actual soil samples collected by professionals. If you have other data you should have presented it to the judge.
You better get ready to see some construction on that empty parking lot. With the arguments you are putting forth, you are just wasting a lot of people’s time and money.
Jay is factually incorrect when he says that:
“The soil is no different on 97th street than on any other block in Manhattan. Those are facts; clearly written in the report and backed up by actual soil samples collected by professionals.” There was no such factual information in the environmental report.There were no soil samples “collected by professionals”, anywhere anywhere else except the 125W 97th St.parking lot,and the the soil samples that I collected.
If Jay has this information about other “soil samples” he should provide the Westsiderag the proof.What Jay’s
comments remind me of is the same words put by JHL’s
highly paid publicist, without facts, only spin.
Martin,
Perhaps you didn’t read the judges’ ruling (or supporting materials).
Here you are: https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-division-first-department/2017/100546-15-1445-100641-15-1444.html
Here’s some keys statements you didn’t see:
“The record also reflects that DOH took the requisite “hard look” at the issue of containment of hazardous dust from the construction site. While it is true that DOH conceded that there is a controversy over whether any level of exposure to lead dust is acceptable, it can base its determination as to mitigating measures on currently accepted federal and state mitigating measures. In that respect, DOH reviewed soil sampling from the proposed construction site. It found that 38 samples contained lead levels of 290 parts per million (PPM), and 3 contained levels of over 1,000 PPM. The threshold for child play areas, as per the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, is 400 PPM. As a result, DOH mandated certain remedial measures, including a two-foot cap of clean soil over any ground left exposed after construction and dust control measures including watering of the soil during demolition, excavation, and soil transport to minimize airborne dust.”
You can read more about the specific sample results here:
https://www.health.ny.gov/facilities/cons/environmental_quality_review/jewish_home_lifecare/docs/2014-05_jhl_97_st_phase_ii_rpt.pdf
Some key information for you:
In particular, lead levels in three of the 38 soil samples exceeded 1,000 mg/kg (maximum 3,850 mg/kg), but the overall average lead level was 290 mg/kg. The average level in the samples from the top six inches of tree pits (maximum 681 mg/kg) was 304 mg/kg.
All detected metal concentrations appeared attributable to urban fill materials, which typically contain elevated concentrations of metals with a highly variable distribution.
Your ad hominem attack is really unwarranted. Your inability to have a serious, fact-based conversation is pretty telling about your claims. Don’t bother to respond. It’s pretty clear you are out of your element.
Jay’s angry response hides the true high levels of both lead and other toxins found in that parking lot with some values over 3,000 parts per million. The standard he quotes as safe for a children’s play are of 400 parts per million, has nothing to do with the fact that this toxic dust has a pathway into PS163, and that the PS 163 children do not play in the parking lot! The toxic cloud is coming into PS163 where the indoor threshold level is now seen as low as 5 parts per million and that in actuality there is no safe level of lead for children.Also,the paid consultant that JHL used,averaged out the levels to downplay the high lead levels actually there. The same kind of calculation was done with arsenic that the DOH was informed about but ignored it.
This court finding is only part of a long fight against
this ill conceived construction. The court decision will be appealed. There are also other court matters still unresolved separate from this case as well as other
actions yet to be undertaken. I know that Jay told me not to respond, as he says that “i’m out of my league”, I guess that I can only respond by agreeing with him and being in his league but the second Amendment allows me to do so!
Let’s not forget that JHL in its original filing with the NYSDOH in 2012, advised in that filing that no environmental review for this project was required, and that JHL fought a review from taking place right from the beginning until the
community using scientific findings and organized against it,
including ALL of our elected representatives.
Jay may not know that I collected over 100 soil samples
from eleven NYC parking lots all over the city and that six of the highest levels of lead from all of these samples are in the parking lot near PS 163 that is the intended JHL construction
site. I can also make this scientific information available
to this publication if they want it. I showed this information
at a neighborhood meeting on April 24, 2013.
All of this information was then scrutinized by 10 doctors
and I presented this information during the NYS Environmental Review Process called SEQRA.
“I presented this information during the NYS Environmental Review Process called SEQRA.”
Well… your ‘samples’ didn’t do a very good job of convincing the judges.
Everyone knows there are some heavy metals in the soil, which is expected in the soil everywhere in Manhattan. That’s why the health department required mitigation measures and JHL agreed to them.
I don’t know why you treasure that empty parking lot so much, but you better take some pictures because it will be gone soon.
So the parking lot is teeming with poison? Lead? Arsenic? Really? OK. Then why aren’t the parents DEMANDING that the city clean up this toxic waste dump since their children are currently in the building next door? Such a stupid argument to be made. I agree, entitled UWS parents and the NIMBY bs is tiring.
Thomas is not aware of the scientific criteria that clearly shows that as long as the ground is not disturbed, there is no pathway for these toxins to harm anyone. So, what Thomas is suggesting can’t scientifically take place without harming people.The ground needs to be left alone. No construction!
It can’t be disturbed and cleaned up without harming the children in the school and the rest of the people in the neighborhood.
Building on that property will first require removal of the contamination that worries you and has been around for decades.
The people who are getting in the way of this construction want the contamination to remain on this block forever?
The JHH is a neighborhood institution that has served thousands of elderly people. Their current building is not allowing them to give their patients the best help possible. I can’t believe that there is such opposition.
JHL has a nursing home on 106th Street which houses more patients right now than what they want to shoe-horn into a densely crowded 97th Street. The reason, and the only reason this 20 story nursing home is to be pushed into a space originally designated for light and air space for Park West Village residents is for money and money alone. The swap will land the “non-profit” JHL with a cool $38 mil. And Chetrit will land a much larger plot of land to build even more luxury condos on the UWS changing the dynamic of this neighborhood and with it raising everyone else’s property taxes as a result.
The 20 story 97th Street plan will house fewer beds than 106 and will mainly have short term elderly patients because caring for the elderly long-term is not where the money is. Short term care is! Strange how so many here think making a buck is more important than protecting a public school 25 feet away from a monumental construction project and further destroying the quality of life of a neighborhood that is busting at the seams. Truly sad.
A simple zoning change would have put this nursing home on its original intended location on West 100th Street. That’s a far less congested block that could better handle the ambulances and other accoutrements that will come with this ridiculous project. Oh well, hopefully they’ll put some retail on the ground floor so drivers can do some shopping while they sit in traffic.
The Police and Fire Departments nixed it. They didn’t want it there. While that’s a much wider street which is not an egress from the East Side to the West Side highway as 97th Street is-the Police double park their cars there and did not want the increased traffic the Nursing Home would bring. Their opinion counted-but not the parents of the school children or the residents of the area on the 97th Street plan.
Jamming elderly, bed-ridden patients into a congested floor plan is putting them at risk in an emergency. How do you maneuver a hospital bed around corners;how many hospital beds will fit into an elevator? An how many elevators will there be? Is there the redundancy of a backup generator, should power fail? This JHL structure on 97 St. is a catastrophe waiting to take place.
To say nothing of the impact of the noise and dust on the young lungs of the school children in a building on top of the construction site. Chetrit is a greedy man, with no regard for the devastating impact his construction will have not only on PWV and the school ,but on every residence on the block, and the other school in W. 97 St.
Here’s proof positive that JUSTICE IS BLIND!!