Neighbors fearful of Leonard Hospital plan
Proposed apartment complex meets with vocal opposition at public meeting
TROY, N.Y. » A proposal to demolish the long-abandoned Leonard Hospital and replace it with mixed-income housing met with vocal, sometimes angry, opposition at a public meeting Tuesday night.
More than 100 people filled a meeting room at the Lansingburgh Boys & Girls Club, many of them neighbors of the hospital, which sits in a residential area along New Turnpike Road near the Schaghticoke town line. Opponents of the plan offered by The Community Builders, a nonprofit developer, cited a host of concerns, including the impact of additional traffic on the neighborhood and how the Lansingburgh Central School District would handle an expected influx of children.
“I’m very suspicious of the whole project,” said John Cubit, a board member of the Troy Communtiy Land Bank who spoke out against the proposal Tuesday night, “The location bothers me. God knows we all want to see Leonard Hospital gone, but at what cost to the people who live around it?”
Much attention, however, focused on the developer’s plan to include a number of units for people in need of additional support, such as counseling, case management and job or life skills training, that would be provided through a partnership with Unity House. Many neighbors said they fear the potential trouble they could face from the recovering addicts, people with mental health issues and others who would live in the supported housing units.
Tim O’Byrne, project manager for The Community Builders, said those fears are misplaced because the complex — just like one it already operates downtown in Monument Square and one it is set to officially unveil next week in the former Morradian’s furniture warehouse on River Street — will have professional, on-site management and supervision, while Unity House representative Linda Lewis said those who would live in those units would likely be long-term residents who would be carefully screened before joining the community.
fore joining the community.
“These are not public housing units,” O’Byrne said. “These are not absentee landlord properties.”
The City Council’s Finance Committee recommended approval of the plan last week by a 7-2 vote, with a final vote scheduled for Thursday night’s monthly council meeting, which will take place at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall. Councilwoman Kimberly Ashe-McPherson joined Jim Gulli, whose District 1 includes the affected area, in voting against the proposal. Council president Carmella Mantello is withdrawing her support.
“It’s apparent that the proposal lacks public support,” she said in a statement emailed Wednesday. “The proposal, in my view, has pros and cons. However, at this point, the public has expressed they are not supportive of the proposal as it’s now presented. Therefore, while it’s up to each Council Member to decide how to vote based upon the public’s input, I am not going to support the proposed project at tomorrow evening’s council meeting.”
Under the developer’s proposal, it would buy the property from the city for $1, then work with city officials to arrange state and federal funding, mainly through state Low-Income Housing Tax Credits used
primarily to entice funding sources to invest in a project. The Community Builders would then foot the estimated cost of as much as $2.5 million to safely remove asbestos from the property, which opened in 1970 but was shuttered in 1996 as part of a statewide effort to consolidate health-care services.
Once financing is in place and demolition completed, the plan is to replace the building with a four- or five-story building that would house 60 to 80 apartments, including 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom units, as well as a community room, computer labs and laundry facilities. The remaining apartments would be garden-style units, possible townhouses, with as many as 40 planned for a separate building on the 6.40-acre lot.
Two previous proposals for the property fell through largely because of the condition of the building, which has been unused since the hospital was closed in 1996 as part of a state program to consolidate health-care services. Where other developers have not been able to take on such a demanding project, though, council members said they believe The Community Builders has a better chance of making it happen, pointing to their revival of the former Mooradian’s building on River Street into Tapestry on the Hudson, a $22 million, mixed-income apartment building that will be formally unveiled at a June 6 ribbon-cutting ceremony.