East 21st Street Rehab Center Ordered To Halt Construction After Lawmaker Chides Agencies

A proposed East 21st Street drug rehabilitation center is feeling the heat, after community opposition and pressure from local leaders succeeded in getting city and state agencies to halt construction until its plans have been reexamined.

The clinic, First Steps to Recovery, is seeking to move its existing operations from Brighton 12th Street to 2634 East 21st Street. But after a heated Tuesday afternoon meeting between Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo and representatives from the city’s Department of Health and the state’s Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services, a cease and desist was issued and the agencies agreed to reevaluate the proposed location. Cymbrowitz chided the agencies for “screwing up” and ordered them to review their application procedures – or face legislative solutions through his position as the chairman of the Assembly’s Committee on Alcohol and Substance Abuse.

“The process is wrong. They apologized about miscommunications, but it wasn’t just miscommunication, it was a total screw up on their part and they agreed. They say they’d do better in the future but that’s not acceptable,” Cymbrowitz told Sheepshead Bites. “They didn’t do their homework, and whoever gave the landlord permission was totally off base and was wrong.”

It turned out that “whoever” was the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOH), although it wasn’t until months after DOH gave contingent approval that the community learned about it.

According to Cymbrowitz, because the state agency is undermanned, they rely on local governments to approve siting information rather than inspecting the locations themselves. In this case, OASAS passed the buck to the DOH. But because Community Board 15 believed OASAS to be the licensing agency, they sent their letter of objection to them and not the DOH. Faced with an approval from DOH but an objection from the Community Board, OASAS gave the green light to go forward.

“They got a letter of objection from [the Community Board]. If you received a letter of objection from the Community Board that knows this district, and the assemblymember that represents this district, don’t you think someone should have said, ‘Hold it, maybe there’s a problem here’?” Scavo asked. “Maybe they should have looked at it a little more carefully.”

Even so, Cymbrowitz and Scavo said, DOH mishandled the case. They told Sheepshead Bites that at the Tuesday meeting, DOH representatives admitted to having never visited the site and approved it as a matter of course.

The rubberstamping means the city and state overlooked the fact that – despite what the applicant claimed – there were 12 residential units above the proposed facility, no parking as stated, and the street is too narrow to accommodate ambulette access, Cymbrowitz said.

“At this point, I’m convinced that the city didn’t do their homework, did not inspect, and based their contingent approval upon the need of the community [and not the actual location],” Cymbrowitz said.

“It’s a three-story residential building. There are children outside with bikes. And you’re going to have all these other people? No, I don’t think so,” added Scavo. “When I heard ambulettes, I said, ‘What? Where are they going over there? There’s not even place to pull over.”

The whole ordeal so upset Cymbrowitz that he threatened to bring to bear the weight of his powerful seat as chairperson of the Assembly’s Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse to reform the process. He’s ordered OASAS to reassess its review process and propose alterations to improve communication with the community and to give local representatives a larger say in siting – or face legislation that would force them to do so.

If it comes to that, he said he’ll propose legislation requiring such clinics to seek approval from the Community Board, and for OASAS to give more weight to that approval.

“The way this was done is just not the way things should be done in New York City. They offered to come up with new regulations, and I said I’m not sure that I feel comfortable with what they’re doing and maybe I need to do that legislatively – including a more powerful role for the Community Board,” Cymbrowitz said. “That’s why I’m looking to rewrite it, they dropped the ball on this, relying on a city agency who didn’t do what they were supposed to do.”

Cymbrowitz said he’s happy that construction will halt as a result of the meeting and that the clinic’s location will be reevaluated, but noted the fight’s far from over. He’s urging neighbors to continue calling OASAS with their complaints about the location.

“It’s not over. We want to make sure that this is totally rejected and the only way to do that is for the residents to continue writing and calling OASAS, and I will continue to put pressure on them as well,” he said.