DISTRICT OFFICE CHAIR

105 EAST 116TH STREET PARKS & RECREATION

NEW YORK, NY 10029
(212) 828-9800
FAX: (212) 722-6378
CITY HALL OFFICE
250 BROADWAY, ROOM 1882
NEW YORK, NY 10007
(212) 788-6960
FAX: (212) 442-1564
mviverito@council.nyc.gov
MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO
_________________________
COMMITTEES
AGING
THE COUNCIL OF CIVIL SERVICE & LABOR
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
THE CITY OF NEW YORK CONTRACTS
HOUSING & BUILDINGS
PUBLIC HOUSING
YOUTH SERVICES
COUNCIL MEMBER, 8TH DISTRICT

May 3, 2011

Charles P. Abel
Assistant Director
Division of Health Care Facility Planning
New York State Department of Health
433 River Street, Suite 303
Troy, New York 12180-2299

Re: Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged (New York County)
CON #06-2403-C

Dear Mr. Abel:

I am writing to you in support of a request made by my constituents for a public hearing

on Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged’s (now known as Jewish Home Lifecare, or
JHL) certificate of need application to build a new residential healthcare facility on West
100th Street in Manhattan. I share my constituents’ deep concerns regarding your
response letter, dated March 4, 2011, where you effectively denied this request. As the
New York City Council Member for the 8th District, which includes both JHL’s current
building on West 106th Street and the proposed location of its new facility on West 100th
Street, I have followed very closely JHL’s plans to first expand on its own site, and more
recently, to move six blocks south to a new location. I believe unequivocally that an
additional hearing is warranted to assess this new site and the many issues that it presents
to the prospective residents of the facility as well as the surrounding community.

In your letter, you stated that JHL’s certificate of need was originally reviewed and
recommended for approval by both the State Department of Health and the State Hospital
Review and Planning Council, and that “[a]t that time, there was an opportunity to
express public opposition.” Like my constituents, I am at a loss to understand how you
can claim that the only opportunity they had for public participation concerning JHL’s
current application was to oppose the application for West 106th Street, which had
nothing whatsoever to do with JHL’s current plan to build a new residential healthcare
facility on West 100th Street.

Jewish Home’s application to replace its current facility on West 106th Street - which
was filed in December 2006 - involved extensive dealings and negotiations with its West
106th Street neighbors, in which I participated personally. Those dealings included both
the creation of a zoning carve-out to permit Jewish Home to attract a real estate developer
to its West 106th Street campus, and the negotiation of several written agreements with

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Jewish Home’s West 106th Street neighbors concerning the specific design and use
restrictions that would apply to the site. There was never any indication during those
extensive dealings and negotiations that at some future date, Jewish Home would
suddenly change its plans and seek to build an entirely different building in an entirely
different neighborhood within my council district.

It was not until late in August 2009 that Jewish Home first announced its intention to
build a new residential healthcare facility on West 100th Street - more than two years
after the public comment period for the West 106th Street application had expired.

Your letter states that a move of six blocks constitutes only a modification of Jewish
Home’s original application that does not require public comment, because the proposed
new site lies within the same service area as its current 106th Street campus. This
assertion - which has been made repeatedly by the Department over the past year -
ignores the fact that the proposed West 100th Street site is completely different from the
current West 106th Street site, and that the new proposal for a 20-story facility is
completely different from the 14-story building presented in their original proposal. As
the elected representative for this “service area,” I can affirm that the proposed West
100th Street location – which is already home to several high-rise residential buildings, a
fire station, a police precinct, a public library, administrative offices of the New York
City Department of Health, a church, two parking garages, and two commercial loading
docks – presents health and safety issues that do not exist at the current West 106th St.
location, where JHL is the sole institutional presence, and where its loading docks lie to
the rear of the building on West 105th Street. These distinctions should not be ignored,
and should require an amendment to the certificate of need which should be subject to
public review.

Having actively participated in the negotiations involving JHL’s plan to build on West
106th Street, I can attest to the fact that the land and building arrangements – the creation
of a zoning carve-out, provision for the sale of a portion of the parcel to an unspecified
real estate developer, and replacement of its current building with a new building on land
it already owns – were completely different from Jewish Home’s proposed plan to build
on West 100th Street. This new plan involves the sale of its entire West 106th Street
campus to a specified real estate developer, and the acquisition of new land from the
same developer to build a new building. The Department has acknowledged this new
arrangement by making an acceptable “land swap” agreement one of the contingencies of
granting final permission to Jewish Home to build on West 100th Street.

Unfortunately, your letter reinforces a strongly-held belief among my constituents that

the Department’s only interest in this matter is to protect JHL, without any regard not
only for the impact this new facility would have on the thousands of people who live
adjacent to the proposed West 100th Street site and in the surrounding neighborhood. It
also fails to address serious questions that have been raised regarding the health and
safety of the frail and elderly residents who would live on the upper floors of a tall,
residential healthcare facility located on a street that is already seriously overburdened
with multiple extraordinary uses.

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I call upon Health Commissioner Shah to exercise his authority under the Public Health
Law to conduct a public hearing on JHL’s West 100th Street application before taking
any further action on this matter.

Sincerely,

Melissa Mark-Viverito

cc: Hon. Andrew M. Cuomo

Hon. Thomas K. Duane, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Health
Hon. Bill Perkins, Senator, District 30
Hon. Richard N. Gottfried, Chair, Assembly Committee on Health
Hon. Daniel J. O’Donnell, Assembly Member, District 69
Nariv Shah, MD, MPH, Commissioner, New York State Department of Health

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