City Planning Commission Approves Rudin Condo Plan for St. Vincent’s, Sending Application to City Council
 Following approval by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, yesterday the City Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve a proposal by Rudin Management to rezone the shuttered St. Vincent’s Hospital East Campus to allow condo development of that site. The City Planning Commission is composed of appointees of the Mayor, the Public Advocate, and each of the five borough presidents.
The vote sends the application to the City Council, which must hold public hearings and vote upon the proposed zoning changes in the next 60 days. GVSHP will let you know when those hearings have been scheduled. The proposed rezoning cannot happen, and the proposed Rudin development cannot move ahead, unless it is approved by the City Council. The site lies in Council Speaker Quinn’s district, and thus the Council will likely follow her lead in deciding whether or not to approve this application.
GVSHP continues to oppose the rezoning application. This site was rezoned in 1979 to allow the construction of larger than normally allowable buildings for a hospital, which provides a public service. The Rudin rezoning application is, in essence, asking that the additional bulk and extra zoning considerations granted to St. Vincent’s now be given to them to allow them to construct larger-than-currently (or normally) allowable private, market-rate condos in the Greenwich Village Historic District. We believe this is not only bad planning and a bad principle, but is inappropriate in terms of size and scale and the loss of historic buildings for this site. We also believe that this sets a terrible precedent whereby the special privileges afforded institutions serving a public purpose, of which there are many in our neighborhood, can be exploited by private developers. GVSHP will continue to push for the upzoning of the site for luxury condo development to be rejected.
See coverage of the vote on NY1 News and Channel 5 News, and in Crain’s NY, WNYC, the Epoch Times, City Realty, and DNAinfo.
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