UWS Residents Split On Nursing Home Proposal
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
There's tension building on the Upper West Side over plans to move a nursing home, and while it’s not a done deal, some residents are speaking out to make sure it never happens. NY1’s Rebecca Spitz filed the following report.There wasn't an open seat at Community Board 7’s monthly meeting Tuesday.
First on the agenda was whether to endorse moving a senior care facility from West 106th Street to a lot about 10 blocks south.
The resolution passed 37-0 with four abstentions.
Jewish Home Lifecare says its current building is obsolete. It wants to build a 20-story facility on West 97th street through a land-swap with the current owner.
"The owner of this parking lot is giving this land to Jewish Home, plus paying some money, and then they are going to take over the current Jewish Home campus on 106th Street and probably build a residential building there," said Ethan Geto, a spokesperson for Jewish Home Lifecare.
But some people who live around in the neighborhood say no so fast.
They say 97th Street is already congested and that this will only makes matters worse.
"When this street becomes filled up, it will slow the response time of ambulances, fire trucks and police vehicles, and when this street is already crowded, we already have a delayed response time," said area resident Hillel Hoffman.
Some parents whose kids go to the elementary school next to the vacant lot worry about the years-long building process.
"We're concerned about the noise that will take place as the construction is going on. We're concerned about children having to be inside. We do not have air conditioning in our gym or our auditorium, both of which front the construction site," said Carrie Reynolds, co-president of the P.S. 163 PTA.
Jewish Home Lifecare says it's already talking with the principal there but that it's also concerned about its elderly clients.
“It would be a nightmare for the current residents to have years of construction when they are inside the buildings the construction is occurring in,” said Geto.
While there are a lot of passionate arguments on both sides of the issue, it's unclear how much impact they will ultimately have.
The proposal now goes to the Department of City Planning for its independent review.