The Bloomberg administration has done an about-face on its plan to send the redevelopment of the former Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital though the city’s standard (and intensive) public review process, known among real estate wonks as ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) — a move that has at least one project opponent fuming.
“This is a cute way of trying to go around the City Council, and I’m confident it will be subject to a legal challenge,” said Brooklyn Councilwoman Letitia James.
The project in question, announced in March 2008, would turn the fabled institution at First Avenue and 30th Street, which has served the psychiatric needs of legendary, and legendarily unstable, New Yorkers like Eugene O’Neil, Charles Mingus, and Allen Ginsberg, into a hotel and conference center.
