On Tuesday, December 22 at 6 pm at Brooklyn Borough Hall, the application to rezone part of Red Hook to allow an 8 story nursing home to be build in a flood zone will be the subject of a public hearing. 

There is so much wrong with the above sentence that my head is exploding. I couldn’t sleep most of last night. All I can do is to explain why this is so so wrong. 

First and foremost – does anyone know about this meeting? This paper only found out yesterday because somebody happened to mention it to me. We receive press releases from the Borough President all the time. We have been in touch with Oxford’s lobbying firm, Davidoff, Citron and Hutcher, LLC, since last summer when their initial presentations were made to various community groups, and this newspaper. We have written five major stories on this subject since last June, and yet no community group, including those in the Red Hook Houses, thought it important enough that the local paper should publicize this opportunity for the potential neighbors of this proposed facility to let the Borough President know what they think.

Of course, the other obvious stab in the back of Red Hook is the timing of this so-called public meeting. How many people will venture to a public meeting three days before Christmas? All the local groups whose meetings I attend take most of December off. Instead, they hold holiday parties, or table any activity until after the holidays. (ED Note – see end of the story for a statement from the Borough President’s office about this).

This comes directly on the heels of a stunning turnabout in the fortune of this project at our local community board as the vote of the Land Use Committee was ignored by the general board to give Oxford its approval.

Oxford is requesting a Uniform Land Use Procedure (ULURP) – a fancy name for a zoning change. Zoning is meant to provide some sort of planning for the development of cities. If land use was left completely to the market, a city would end up being a hodgepodge of buildings created to realize the greatest profit for builders, at the time of their construction. For example, if developers had their way, there probably would be no place to work in Brooklyn, as residential towers would occupy every buildable space – and existing tenants would be thrown out in order to accommodate the money coming in from all over the world to own NYC condos. Then, when the money would eventually dry up, communities would be left with empty towers that would require huge sums to repurpose whatever was selling then.

With properly planned zoning, the city is divided into places to live, places to shop, and places to work. Of course, property values can change, depending on existing zoning, so there is always political pressure to rezone.

The ULURP procedure requires input from the Community Board, the Borough President, the Department of City Planning, leading to an eventual vote at the City Council.

Which is why it is extremely worrisome to those in Red Hook who came to testify at PS 27 earlier this month, taking time out of their evening to tell the CB6 Land Use Committee what they thought about the Oxford proposal. Despite the committee voting to deny the proposal – it was approved the following week by the full community board who at times expressed disdain for those in Red Hook interested in preserving the historic character of our community.

This approval now goes to the Borough President, who will then offer up his opinion to City Planning. If these two entities approve the plan, it will make it that much harder for our Councilman, Carlos Menchaca, to convince his fellow council members to agree with him that it is folly to create a brand new health facility in a flood prone area.

Why is all this happening? First of all, much credit has to go to the lobby firm of Davidoff, Citron and Hutcher, LLC who has been retained by Oxford to push their plan through. They are doing exactly what they have been hired to do, and they are experts  in outfoxing communities.

This is how they promote themselves on their website:

“Lawyers of our government relations practice have been involved in New York’s local and State governments for decades, many of them formerly holding positions in New York City with the Office of the Mayor, City Council, the City Planning Commission and a variety of municipal agencies; on Long Island with the Nassau County Legislature and Nassau County Department of Recreation & Parks, and on the State level with the Legislature and agencies of State government.

Their extensive experience inside government affords the firm the all important working knowledge of what it takes to successfully navigate an issue through the legislative and executive branches of government. It also is the foundation for vital relationships with government officials that are built upon a mutual trust and respect.”

The community board turnaround was clinched by a letter from the Oxford owner to CB 6 Chairperson Gary Reilly. The letter, which addressed many of the concerns brought up at the committee meeting, was handed to each voting member as they walked in. This was done by Nora Martin, attorney and employee of Davidoff, Citron and Hutcher, LLC.

Among those members of the Land Use committee who reversed their vote and voted in favor of the Oxford application was Jerry Armer, who in the past seemed a formidable Oxford opponent. He announced his change in the public vote citing that letter.

I can only presume here that it the lobbying expertise of Davidoff, etc, was able to get a public meeting at Borough Hall scheduled three days before Christmas. They have done nothing to publicize this meeting, of course, and I can only presume that they will make sure that the same people who testified in favor of the plan at PS 27 will be brought to this meeting. This includes the 1199 union, who represents Oxford healthcare workers at their other facilities, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, who never gets in the way of real estate developers, and various members of the Red Hook Houses who have been given the same false promises given by others seeking rubberstamp approval from Red Hook residents.

And there is nothing wrong with that – it is completely legal and what a lobbying firm does for a living.

There is one last piece of this that needs mentioning. The email leaked to me was from the one local entity that, as far as I know, is aware of this meeting. That is the NY Rising Committee.

This committee is a self-appointed group of locals that has been meeting privately for the past few years. Their original purpose was to shepherd resiliency monies offered up by Andrew Cuomo throughout the state while he was running his last election. They have interjected themselves into two current controversies – the location of a Red Hook commuter ferry, and the nursing home fracas.

They are no match for the Davidoff professionals. Rising did come up with a well written letter outlining their objections. Was it distributed to the community board members? I’m not sure.  I think it was passed out at the PS 27 meeting, but I’m not sure. I received my copy via an email that was leaked to me.

And what is their strategy for Tuesday’s meeting? Victoria Hagman has been outspoken in her criticism of Oxford, yet I passed by her Van Brunt Street real estate office, and there was no mention of this upcoming meeting. Neither is it on the much ballyhooed Red Hook Hub, supposedly this community’s information network. It is on the Borough President’s website, although I wonder when it was first posted…..

OFFICE OF THE BROOKLYN BOROUGH PRESIDENT 

UNIFORM LAND USE REVIEW PROCEDURE
PUBLIC HEARING

Notice is hereby given that, pursuant to Sections 197-c of the New York City Charter, the Brooklyn Borough President will hold a public hearing on the following matters in the Brooklyn Borough Hall Community Room, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201, commencing at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015.

CALENDAR ITEM 1 –– 150361 ZMK/ 150362 ZSK/ 150363 ZCK
The application submitted by Conover King Realty, LLC pursuant to Sections 197-c and 201 of the New York City Charter for an amendment to the Zoning Map, a special permit pursuant to Zoning Resolution Section 74-902, and a certification pursuant to Zoning Resolution Section 22-42, to facilitate the development of a Use Group 3 200-bed nursing home and Use Group 4 ambulatory diagnostic and treatment facility in a newly developed 7 ½ -story building at 141 Conover Street, in Red Hook, Community District 6.

UPDATE: 

We received this statement at the end of the day Monday from the Borough President:

“Our standard approach to posting notices for ULURP public hearings and spreading the word to the community involves listings on our website’s community calendar and in our regularly scheduled e-blasts, which reach thousands of Brooklynites that have signed up for the service, as well as handing out notices at impacted community boards. As part of the ULURP process, Brooklyn Borough Hall has a responsibility to calendar public hearings within a certain timeframe once the item has been certified. The certification of the application for 147 Conover Street coincided with the start of the holiday season, impacting the available scheduling dates for the hearing. The public notice was finalized on Thursday, December 3rd, in time to bring copies to Community Board 6’s land use committee meeting, and the notice was posted to our website the following day. We encourage all interested residents to attend tomorrow’s ULURP hearing and welcome testimony via e-mail for those unable to attend.”