New Red Hook Nursing Home Called Off by City Hall

• Image courtesy of Oxford Nursing Home

RED HOOK, BROOKLYN — With a vote of 47 to 2, the City Council on Wednesday rejected a developer-requested zoning change that would have cleared the way for a new $65 million, 200-bed nursing home in Red Hook.

The facility was to be constructed at 141 Conover St. by Oxford Nursing Home.

Oxford, which purchased the property 13 years ago, planned to relocate its current Fort Greene facility to the site, as reported by DNAinfo last year.

But in order to move forward, the zoning of the property needed to be changed from its current industrial status to a category allowing mixed-use residential development.

Community Board 6's land use committee rejected the developer's request last year — but the full board passed it anyway in December.

While the project had the backing of union members from 1199 SEIU, it was opposed by Red Hook Councilman Carlos Menchaca.

During his remarks on the Council floor Wednesday, Menchaca summed up his reasoning..

The plan, he said, "would place our most frail nursing home residents and the professionals who care for them in a mandatory evacuation zone" — an area that went five weeks without electricity after Hurricane Sandy and one he said is saddled with "distant and unreliable public transit."

According to Crain's, Oxford owner Barry Braunstein said last year that the company had addressed flooding fears "by careful design and emergency planning."

Red Hook's City Hall representative also said the zoning change "would further erode Red Hook's already diminished manufacturing space," and said the neighborhood's narrow roads and infrastructure would be overburdened by the project.

A spokesman for Oxford couldn't immediately be reached Thursday. However, an attorney for the company told DNAinfo that he was "extremely disappointed" by the vote.