We had a meeting last night with the Cobble Hill Health Center about their plans to renovate the building. Because they are within the Cobble Hill Historic District, their plans must be reviewed by Community Board 6 and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. They were kind enough to sit down with the community before their official hearings begin.

As Donny Tuchman of CHHC explained, the interior of the building needs to be renovated to create larger rooms and more handicapped accessibility. From a landmarks perspective, the problem is that their air flow plans involve adding four rooftop mechanical units that would be visible from the street.

We advised them and their architect to find a way to disguise the units or make them less visually obtrusive. Baffling, fencing, and different colors of paint were all suggested, but clearly their approach to the rooftop units will have to be reimagined if they want LPC to approve their renovation. They agreed to try to do that and to keep the community updated during the twenty-month construction, set to begin later this year.

The next event is their appearance before the CB6 Landmarks Committee. Here are the details:

Thursday, June 26, 2008
6:00 p.m.
P.S. 32 Auditorium
317 Hoyt Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231.

After that, their LPC hearing is scheduled for July 22. We will keep you updated as the matter moves forward.