The
Red Hook StarªRevue
DECEMBER 2015
SOUTH BROOKLYN’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
FREE
Nursing home proposal hits roadbump by George Fiala
T
he Oxford Nursing Home proposal for a zoning change in Red Hook received a setback at the December 3 meeting of Community Board 6’s (CB6) Landmark/Land Use committee. A motion against the plan was passed 11-5, with one abstention. The full CB6 board will meet at Borough Hall on December 9 for a final vote. It then travels to Borough President Eric Adams for his opinion, and then on to the City Council for a final hearing. Oxford Nursing Home is a family owned, for-profit nursing home that is currently located in Fort Greene in a 103 year-old building that was once an Elks Club. The NYS Department of Health (DOH) determined the facility to be unsuitable because of its age. Owner Barry Braunstein purchased land in Red Hook in 2003 with plans to build a brand new, state-of-the art nursing home. The promise of a new home allowed him to keep the Fort Greene location open. The December 3 meeting was held in the auditorium of PS 27 and drew over 100 people, including residents, CB6 members and invited guests who came to speak on behalf of Oxford.
Nora Martins, a lawyer with the firm Davidoff, Citron and Hutcher, LLC, represented Oxford. Owner Braunstein and members of his family and staff sat on the right side of the auditorium, listening.
tory of Oxford’s land purchase in Red Hook. They bought almost the whole block of land - bordered by Van Brunt, Sullivan, Conover and King Streets - in 2003. They have rented out the property on a short term basis to a welding company and as truck and bus storage in anticipation of their project. In 2006, NYC created a new zoning designation called Industrial Business Zones (IBZ) which strengthened manufacturing zone in 16 designated areas. A part of Red Hook including the Oxford property, was made an IBZ. This made it improbable that a zoning change allowing a nursing home facility would be approved. In 2009, Oxford was granted a Certificate of Need by the DOH, approving their plans to build a $65 million nursing home in Red Hook. In 2013, the city modified some of the IBZ zones. Oxford and Pioneer Works asked to be let out of the IBZ, and both applications were granted. This set the stage for the present application, which was the topic of the Land Use meeting. A ULURP is a procedure in which zoning changes are considered and either approved or re-
Martins began by recounting the his-
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Councilman Menchaca greets the audience and urges all to give a good listen
Oxford then was given the floor to make their presentation.
Developer tries to give Gowanus a free park, but city doesn’t want it
T
he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was tasked with the job of cleaning up the toxic Gowanus Canal in 2009, following over 100 years of unbenign neglect on the part of City of New York. The canal was declared a Superfund site over the objections of the city, who felt that passive measures, such as building bioswales, could clean the canal and prevent new contamination. They lost that battle; and the EPA has created a plan to dredge and cap the canal and prevent future contamination by improving the local sewer system. Concrete retention tanks will lessen the amount of raw sewage that is currently flushed into the canal during heavy rains. The major contaminants of the canal are coal tars and human waste. EPA law mandates that these improvements be paid for by the parties responsible for the contamination, which in this case includes the city.
Red Hook Star-Revue
by George Fiala
The Gowanus Community Advisory Group (CAG) is the local watchdog of the project and is composed of sixty interested community groups and individuals. The CAG has been meeting monthly for over five years and is kept abreast of the Superfund project by the EPA cleanup team consisting of Project Manager Christos Tsiamis, attorney Brian Carr, and Community Involvement Coordinator Natalie Loney. December’s CAG meeting turned out to be a spirited affair as a local real estate developer made a presentation that one CAG member called “too good to be true.” There has been a lot of back and forth between the EPA and NYC about the location of one of the two retention tanks that will hold the sewer overflows. A retention tank is a large underground structure built to temporarily store the overflow. Heavy rains overwhelm the local sewers. When the rain ends, the pipes clear up, allowing the stored swaste to continue their normal trip to the Red Hook
ALSO INSIDE
Lorraine Street's 99 cent Dreams offers bargains for all, not to mention groceries! - page 9
Red Hook's community Thanksgiving dinners - page 14
Alloy chief Della Valle makes an offer “too good to be true.” (photo by Fiala)
Wastewater Treatment plant. The EPA wants a tank to be placed at the north end of the canal and have suggested placing it under the swimming pool in Thomas Greene Park. The Park sits on a parcel of land that formerly housed a Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP). MGP’s produced meth-
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Another park disaster - page 3
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December 2015, Page 1