Notes from the Neighborhood: Roadblock for JHL Plans

Written by Megan Finnegan Bungeroth on . Posted in News & Features West Side Spirit, Notes From the Neighborhood west side spirit, West Side Spirit.

Last month, opponents of the new Jewish Home Lifecare (JHL) facility planned for West 97th Street were disappointed when the Department of City Planning declined to require JHL to submit its plans to the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP). Community Board 7 had voted strongly in favor of requiring this review, which would have given the community more time and greater opportunity to respond to the plan to construct a 20-story tower on what is now the parking lot of the Park West Village apartment complex.
This week, however, opponents won a temporary victory in the form of a court injunction to stop Park West Village from commandeering tenants’ parking spaces to prepare for construction.
Maggi Peyton, president of the Park West Village tenants’ association and outspoken opponent of the new building, filed suit along with other plaintiffs against JHL and Park West Village, along with 60 others, claiming that relocating their parking spaces to what they argue would be a less convenient and safe location is a violation of the rent regulated leases that specifically include them. A judge agreed that their case is likely to succeed and issued an injunction preventing the developers from any actions or modifications to the parking lot while the case is still pending.
The developers and Park West Village will now need to go through the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal in order to seek a modification to the tenants’ lease riders regarding parking spaces.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Trackback from your site.

  • JACK T.

    That is very good news and i hope that i will always keep my temper in check. All we can do is chip away, piece by piece, at the operators in this case. Who knows what might happen?

  • Jean Green Dorsey

    The Park West Teenants and the Working Group of Concerned Neighbors should be thanked for their efforts to stop what will surely be a sad place for seniors. What is being as a “Green” design by JHL is, in fact, based on a “command and control” scheme used to design prisons. Check out PANTOPICAN to confirm for yourself.

    The City Planning Commission Hearing on the issue was a reflection of “orders from the top” and the presentation was an exercise. Just pitiful when you know that City Planning was key to the decision to create the carve-out at 106th street for JHL to be able to grow on its present site. The CB7 Zoning Task Force that worked on the project did excellent work to protect the quality-of-life for our neighborhood. It included inter-departmental cooperation from Transportation, Sanitation and Buildings as well as Police and Fire departments. That we should find ourselves facing this kind of overwhelming intrusion after that effort is not a good thing.

    What is proposed by JHL is a violation of the public trust in that if all went well, we’d wind up with less support than is currently available and use considerable public funding in the process. Now, that is a big “IF.” As a resident of 97th street for over a quater of century, I value the light, air and space left in the community. That said, we have to be ready for changes and have recently lived though quite a few and stayed strong and together. We vote in big numbers, many will need senior supports in the near future — what is being proposed is important to us on many levels. The current JHL plan takes care of a greedy few at an extraordinary cost to many.

    JAG Dorsey

  • Carol

    One discussion item that is left out of all the articles on this issue recently is that the JHL allegedly could not raise enough money to rebuild on the 106th Street site, and was offered money along with the 97th street location to swap; THE QUESTION to ask is WHY JHL could not or cannot still raise the money to stay where they are, given the community objections. The DEVELOPER may obviously see the 106th street site as more lucrative than 97th Street; make it not so and see if the swap stays in place. Also, ask, why the developer doesn;t just partner with JHL and provide funds to develop on 106th Street?

..