Made to order rules for Hebrew Home draw angry reaction

Two Riverdale groups are asking the Department of City Planning (DCP) to remove passages from the mayor’s rezoning plan that would enable the Hebrew Home at Riverdale to build a mini-city of mid-rise towers along the Hudson River in the northwest corner of the community.

A lawyer for both the Riverdale Community Coalition and the Riverdale Nature Preservancy demanded that City Planning Commissioner Carl Weisbrod remove the passages in question from the mayor’s Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) text amendments. DCP has argued ZQA will meet the mayor’s goals for increasing affordable housing for seniors and others in the coming years.

“The manipulation of the zoning resolution is so obviously in the sole private interest of the Hebrew Home as to raise the specter of a back-room deal intended to cut the public and [City] Council out of the review and approval process,” stated the Oct. 27 letter, signed by attorney Albert Butzel.

The document continued that the new zoning resolution would allow the Hebrew Home to apply for permission for its plans — an 11-story tower on its north campus, two 8-story buildings on its south campus and a four-story building located behind the home’s RiverWalk apartments — directly from the CPC, thus “bypassing the ULURP [Uniform Land Use Review] process” in which the community board weighs in and “excluding the City Council from any voice in the ultimate decision.”

In an e-mail statement, a DCP spokesperson sought to explain why the ZQA proposal includes a measure authorizing the CPC alone to give approval for facilities like the ones the Hebrew Home has proposed. The proposal, which comes up for an advisory vote from Community Board 8’s Land Use Committee next week, refers to such sites as continuing care retirement community, or CCRCs.