Coalition for a New Village Hospital Submits 3,500 Petition Signatures, Comments in Opposition to Rudin Condo Plan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Yetta G. Kurland, Esq.

Kurland, Bonica & Associates, P.C.

(212) 253-6911

Coalition for a New Village Hospital Submits 3,500 Petition Signatures, Comments in Opposition to Rudin Condo Plan

West Village, NY. July 12, 2011. The Coalition for a New Village Hospital submitted 3,500 signatures to the New York City Planning Commission yesterday along with an 11 page position paper in opposition to the Rudin’s plan to develop St. Vincent’s Hospital into luxury condominiums. They petition called upon the CPC to deny the Rudin Organization’s plan alleging that it would violate law, deny lower Manhattan with desperately needed health care and overtax the current infrastructure in the area with the additional 450 luxury units the plan proposes.

The petition, viewable online at: http://www.change.org/petitions/a-hospital-not-condos-for-nyc, highlights that the Rudin application “does not include a hospital. As such, it does not comply with the requirements of the 2009 LPC ‘judicial hardship’ approval. Nor does it comply with the provisions of 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code in that this sale and the proposed Rudin plan does not continue the charitable mission of SVCMC as it is required to, namely to provide a full service hospital.”

Online signatories (the majority of signatures were gathered on paper) had the opportunity to comment as well. Many of the comments spoke to resident’s personal experiences at St. Vincent’s, and more recently in the absence of a hospital.

Fred Hersch wrote: “St. Vincent's saved my life three times. It should be there for others.”

Rosemary Rowley said: “What we need is health care, not more upscale housing to burden all ready overburdened services.”

The petition was supplemented by formal comments from the Coalition for a New Village Hospital’s attorney, Yetta Kurland.

Those comments, viewable at http://demandahospital.blogspot.com/2011/07/comments-on-coalitions-petition-to-cpc.html, focus on the various land use, zoning, public health and nonprofit law deficiencies in the Rudin’s application, and called upon the City Planning Commission to reject the application.

In a statement, Ms Kurland said, “The Rudin Condo plan does not comply with the law, and it does not comply with common sense. This location is clearly well suited for hospital use – and has been for 160 years. There can be no doubt that the interests and public health of the City of New York would be irrevocably damaged if this flawed, illegal plan is permitted to proceed.”

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