East Siders call biotech an unwelcome neighbor.

An influential Manhattan cancer hospital wants to expand their Upper East Side campus by rezoning a three-block area adjacent to their existing campus.

Yet Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's 600,000 SF proposal for an initial building has angered a group of neighbors who fear that the rezoning could open the floodgates to other local hospitals with expansion plans, among other concerns. Construction of the facility would also close down a park on 68th Street and -- once completed -- would cast a shadow on that park.

Also, these residents worry that the presence of a "biotech incubator" would contaminate their already hospital-saturated neighborhood.

The project is now engaged in the public review process yet appears to be moving forward at a decent clip. Sloan-Kettering has retained Skidmore Owings & Merrill to submit designs for the project.

The development would be located on the mid-block of 68th and 69th Streets, between First and York Avenues, and would house 23 floors of laboratory space. Since these floors would require higher ceilings than a standard commercial building, it would really top out more than 40 stories above the neighborhood, according to the opposition.

The Kettering Laboratory would be demolished during the second phase of construction. Sloan-Kettering owns the rectory, school and Siena Church that currently stand on the site; the new lab will incorporate space for a new rectory, according to Sloan-Kettering officials.

As for the zoning implications, R8 designation permits a maximum FAR of 6.5 while R9 permits 10. Since a transfer of development rights from the north block to the main campus would also be utilized, Sloan-Kettering could be in a position to build a much taller, bulkier building than existing zoning allows.

The hospital claims that their existing facility is obsolete, and that their new facilities must be located nearby. Their research buildings are all over thirty-years-old which, they claim, makes it difficult to conduct quality research.

One resident who is leading the charge against the expansion believes that the location of this facility should be across the East River. Joel Ross, an Upper East Side resident, issued a seven-page critique of the rezoning proposal arguing that the plan is too expensive and would give the hospital the right to do anything it wants in the future. Ross, who works in the real estate business, has even offered to help the hospital establish their facility across the river.

"If you read the Schumer Group of 35 Final Report, on pages 60 through 69 the head of Sloan-Kettering, Harold Varmus, says that the best place for biotech is Long Island City. That's right across the river from them," said Ross.

Page 62 of the report does cite Queens West as an area that "several leading research institutions have expressed interest in developing a biotech facility." Sloan-Kettering is mentioned as being "just across the river" from this location.

There is a semantic edge to this conflict, as Sloan-Kettering denies that the facility -- which hospital officials are calling a research facility -- can technically be labeled biotech.

"The biotech facility is a misnomer. This has nothing to do with biotech," said Shelly Friedman, who is acting as land use counsel for Memorial Sloan-Kettering.

"We have a lack of space. And I do not see the rezoning as setting a precedent for the area--the fear that the barn door will be left open is unfounded," he said.

Asked how optimistic he was that the project would be cleared, Friedman said that "it is highly likely that this project will be under construction by late next year."

Given the competitive nature of the medical research business, expansions are commonplace. Expansions in Manhattan are far more expensive and complex than they would be elsewhere, but Sloan-Kettering apparently has no intention of seeking an alternate location for this facility.

Several of the community coalition's doom and gloom arguments have a paranoid edge, among them concerns that a "biotech" facility could lure terrorists to bomb the facility, thereby inflicting damage on the community around it.

Yet research facilities and hospitals are built in the center of residential communities throughout the country, and incidents of this nature rarely happen.

One researcher from a prominent Manhattan hospital said that these type of centers are typically found in residential neighborhoods. As for the claim that the facility need not be located next door, he scoffed at the notion.

"They are Sloan-Kettering because of where they are. That is part of it. And people just don't want to go far for treatment," said the source, who works for a competing hospital and asked not to be named.

The fear that radiation would leak out of the facility and actually cause the disease it is working to cure is also, according to one biotech source, without merit.

"You can build a self-contained facility. As for the explosion risk, there really isn't one," said Tom Sullivan, senior vice president for bio science services at CB Richard Ellis.

Residents don't see it this way, however. They have even fashioned this conflict into a David versus Goliath scenario in which a powerful hospital is given carte blanche to do as they please.

"Why can't they build an eight or ten story building here? As powerful as Memorial Sloan-Kettering is, they would not like to lose this battle," said Barbara Knowlton, a member of the community coalition who lives close to the potential site.

Knowlton speculated that if zoning changes occur, "what would stop Lenox Hill from pressing for new zoning also?"

She said that timing is also a problem as "most of the people who will have to deal with this are at the Hamptons or elsewhere." Knowlton, for that matter, spoke by telephone from the coast.

The City Planning Commission has certified the application as "complete," according to an agency spokeswoman, and last Tuesday the project went before the Board of Standards and Appeals.

The next step in the process takes place tonight, at a Community Board #8 meeting that will end in the board voting on the project. One source predicted that the meeting would be "lively", despite the lack of residents who cannot show their support since they are away at the shore for the summer.

"We won't have a position until July 18, after the board votes," said Ken Moltner, chairman of Community Board 8.

City Planning is expected to make a final decision on the project by the end of 2001. In the meantime, many of those Who may live next to this development will return to the city after Labor Day and hear about what may develop here.