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Mostly Cloudy City Council votes ‘no’ on group home
Monte Nido mulls its next moves
The Glen Cove City Council on Tuesday unanimously rejected a proposal by a California-based company, Monte Nido, to turn a six-bedroom home at 1 St. Andrews Lane into a community treatment center for women with eating disorders.
The proposal was made under the Padavan Law, a state mental hygiene statute designed to make it easier for such facilities to move into municipalities that might not want them.
The city’s rejection followed two of the three pathways outlined by the law. It suggested two “more suitable” alternative sites — 145 Dosoris Lane and 12 Walnut Road — and also claimed that “the nature and character of the area would be substantially altered” by “such a concentration of similar community residential facilities.”
The language of the council’s resolution, which was taken verbatim from the text of the Padavan Law, suggests that, in the event of an appeal, the city would not try to assert that Monte Nido’s proposal is not covered by Padavan, but instead would work within the law’s guidelines to justify its rejection of the proposal.
At a public hearing on the matter, several residents claimed that the proposal didn’t fall under Padavan, on the grounds that Monte Nido is a for-profit company; that the residents would be in the facility for temporary treatment, and not in a permanent therapeutic living situation; and that eating disorders do not constitute a qualifying disability.
After the council meeting was adjourned, Monte Nido’s lawyer, Kathleen Deegan Dickson, texted her client the news, and said she was disappointed by the decision. When asked about the council’s claim that the area was oversaturated with similar facilities, Dickson said, “I don’t think the record bore that out.”
Of the alternative properties, Dickson said, “We did look at those two sites, and found them to be unsuitable.”
Comparing the alternatives
| Address | Bedrooms | Square Feet | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 St. Andrews Lane | 6 | 4,471 (+ 2,300 basement) | $2,295,000 |
| 145 Dosoris Lane | 7 | 6,895 | $3,350,000 |
| 12 Walnut Road | 4 | 2,336 | $775,000 |
The more expensive of the two alternate properties, 145 Dosoris Lane, is a seven-bedroom house on six acres, listed in a real estate database for $3.35 million, or about 46 percent more than the list price of $2.295 million for the St. Andrews Lane house.
The other, 12 Walnut Road, has only four bedrooms and 34 percent of the floor space that 1 St. Andrews has — or 52 percent if the latter’s large basement is not counted — which would likely make it unsuitable for Monte Nido’s 14-bed proposal.
“We’re going to weigh our options and decide what to do,” Dickson said. “We were hopeful that we weren’t going to need to have that discussion.” She added that Monte Nido would make a decision on its next move — to appeal the city’s decision, to choose one of the other two properties or to pull its proposal altogether — over the next few days.
The City Council’s decision came after over a month of pushback by the St. Andrews Lane property’s neighbors, mostly residents of the adjacent Highland Road.
Opponents launched a campaign of lawn signs, correspondence with local officials and impassioned public comments at a hearing on the matter on Feb. 7. The council’s vote to reject Monte Nido’s proposal was met with applause. Nancy Hawkins, a real estate agent whose parents live next to 1 St. Andrews, said of the outcome, “I’m pleased. Who wouldn’t be?”
Hawkins also described Monte Nido as a “nine-billion-dollar hedge fund,” referring to the fact that in 2015, the company was bought out by Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, “an independent investment management firm” according to its website, “that has managed approximately $9 billion of institutional capital since its inception” in 1984.
“They tried to force a commercial treatment center, not a group home, into a residential community,” Hawkins said.
She noted that 145 Dosoris Lane would be more secluded — because of the extra acerage — and thus, more suitable for the company’s purposes. Hawkins added that if that property cost too much for the company, she knew of four other homes for under $2.5 million that met Monte Nido’s size requirements.
