City Promises More LES Housing After Rivington House Scandal

LOWER EAST SIDE, NY — The Lower East Side is getting affordable apartments that will house at least 100 seniors in a plan meant to replace the housing lost during the 2015 Rivington House scandal, the city said Tuesday.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday that a new mixed-income building would be coming to the Lower East Side, and it would include at least 88 units of affordable housing for seniors. De Blasio also said that another 60 nursing home beds would be added to the city's Gouverneur medical center on the Lower East Side.

The announcement on Tuesday stems from a promise de Blasio's administration made after the widely-condemned Rivington House scandal in 2015.

The Rivington House, located at 45 Rivington St., was previously a nursing home for patients with HIV/AIDs. In 2015, the facility's operator, the Allure Group, paid the city $16 million to lift a deed restriction which mandated that the property only be used for nonprofit healthcare purposes. Allure then flipped the property and sold it to developers for a stunning $116 million, displacing about 100 seniors in the process. The developers plan to turn the building into luxury condos.

After outrage that the city had allowed Allure to lift the deed restriction, officials promised to reform the process and committed to increasing affordable housing for seniors on the Lower East Side.

The new housing project will be built at 50 Norfolk St., the mayor's office said Tuesday. De Blasio had previously promised to build a senior housing facility at 30 Pike St. On Tuesday, his office said the plan had been scrapped for the building to Norfolk St. will include 400 units, 88 of which will be reserved for seniors and kept affordable, according to the mayor's plan. The facility will also have some retail space.

The building will also include congregation space for the Beth Hamedrash Hagodol synagogue. The vacant synagogue was largely destroyed in a fired last year.

De Blasio's announcement comes after state attorney general Eric Schneiderman announced on Friday a settlement with the Allure Group, the nursing home operator at the center of the scandal. Schneiderman's probe was one of several launched after the real estate deal. On Friday, Schneiderman announced that his investigation had reached a $2 million settlement with Allure.

As part of the agreement, Allure committed to building two new nursing home facilities, one on Lower East Side and one in Brooklyn, as well as to improving another facility it owns in Harlem. The settlement also requires Allure to give $1.25 million to local nonprofits and pay $750,000 in penalties to the state.

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