Fat lady hasn't yet sung on VA development

From the Queens Chronicle:

Queens veterans feel as though they are back at square one.

After the House successfully passed the Veterans Care Act, an amendment to the military appropriations that would have blocked the partial privatization of the St. Albans VA site, the Senate left the amendment out of its version of the bill, raising concerns among many veterans that the agency might try to revive the proposal at a later time.

Many have long opposed the project, in which a private developer would replace the existing Department of Veterans Affairs facilities with a new nursing home, rehabilitation domiciliary and expanded outpatient facilities in exchange for a long-term lease on part of the site, where it would put up housing and stores open to the general public.

Opponents, however, are against any lease to a private entity and instead want a full-service hospital there, so servicemen and women in Queens and Nassau counties don’t have to travel to Brooklyn, Manhattan or Suffolk County for care.