Reporters Notebook – CB6 and the Oxford Nursing Home Saga, by George Fiala

A week has gone by and I still can’t figure out what happened at the December General Board meeting of Community Board 6.

The week prior, the board’s Land Use committee met at PS 27, in Red Hook, in close proximity to the Red Hook East Houses, to discuss the possibility of approving an 8 story nursing home by Conover Street on a property currently zoned for manufacturing.  For the Oxford Nursing Home to build on land they purchased in Red Hook in 2003, they need a change of zoning.

Zoning changes are supposed to represent the will of the community, and require various approvals, starting with the local community board.

In the vast majority of cases, the vote of the general board follows the recommendation of the committee. CB 6 has committees dealing with land use, parks, permits, waterfront and economic development, and others. In five years of covering CB6, I only remember one time when the general board overruled a committee vote. That was when some board members weren’t happy with a committee vote to grant a wine and beer license to a potential business on Sackett Street (which was once the home of a speakeasy, by the way.) It is now an ice cream shop.

Oxford has spent a number of years working to get their land rezoned. They have suffered a couple setbacks, including a general rezoning strengthening manufacturing areas (the IBZ plan that Bloomberg put through in 2006), and a hurricane.

Oxford has deep pockets, and has hired high priced lobbyists to negotiate their way through the system. The community depends on volunteers to make it’s case.

The community was able to bring out a number of these volunteers to PS 27 for the committee hearing to make its case. While some Red Hooker’s seem to feel that this nursing home will cater to them in terms of beds and jobs, others, who have lived through similar situations know that these promises are rarely kept.

Many at that meeting expressed concerns about an out-of-context structure as well as the wisdom of placing a nursing home and critical care facility in a flood zone.

Members of the land use committee agreed with those presentations and voted to not approve Oxford’s rezoning proposal.

It was a completely different atmosphere at the general meeting. Whereas the week before, the passion belonged to the Red Hook locals against the rezoning, here the passion came from non-Hookers who felt it important to build as many nursing homes in NYC as possible.

In the end it was a slam-dunk for Oxford.

I have to think that this was a victory for highly paid lobbyists, and a loss for the Red Hook community.

That’s a bit sad, since the whole purpose of a community board is to be an advocate for the people it represents.

What would I have done if I were head of CB 6 instead of Gary Reilly?  I would have tabled the motion and sent it back to committee for further discussion.