Jail plan moves to court after Mott Haven, Diaz initiate suit
320 Concord Avenue. File Photo
BY ALEX MITCHELL
The mayor’s plan to build
a prison in the south Bronx
is ‘criminal’ in the eyes of the
Mott Haven community.
That sentiment was reiterated
when that community
launched a lawsuit against the
city over its plan to phase out
Rikers Island and building a
24 to 25 story jail in Mott Haven
on Thursday, May 30.
The urgently marked suit
was inked by Diego Beekman
Mutual Housing, which owns
properties surrounding the
planned jail at 745 E. 141st
Street, and Walter Nash, a
Community Board 1 member
who would live directly across
from the planned facility on
Concord Avenue.
It specifi cally targets
Mayor de Blasio, the NYC Department
of City Planning and
the city’s planning commission
and is supported by Borough
President Ruben Diaz,
Jr.
“The lawsuit fi led by the
residents of Diego Beekman
Houses is a direct result of
this administration’s failure
to give true consideration
to an alternative site in The
Bronx,” Diaz said.
That alternative site he is
referring to is adjacent to the
Bronx Hall of Justice on East
161st Street, which is also referenced
in the lawsuit.
“Yet the city has blatantly
refused to give this location
any consideration,” Diaz said.
Beekman’s legal team,
Stein Adler Dabah & Zelkowitz,
a midtown Manhattan law
fi rm, compiled a list of grievances
in the legal complaint
as to why the Mott Haven jail
plan seeks legal relief.
BRONX TIMES R 18 EPORTER, JUNE 7-13, 2019 BTR
First and foremost, it indicates
that Diego Beekman had
a plan to acquire that piece
city owned land to expand
its affordable housing model
while adding in a mixed use
component as well for the economic
benefi t of the neighborhood.
It also references that the
Mott Haven site is not within
a close proximity to the Bronx
Hall of Justice and other
courthouses “meaning that
detainees will have to be shuttled
several miles through the
adjacent neighborhoods on
buses with armed guards each
day,” according to the suit.
Diaz backed up that sentiment,
claiming that this site
“does not meet the principles
of restorative justice.”
The lawsuit also indicates
that the Bronx site requires
fi ve land use actions while the
ones in each of the other boroughs
only require either two
or three.
It also mentions that the
uniform land use review procedure
“is facially defective
in failing” to meet Diaz’s comments
and alternative site proposal,
in its own words.
“In the interest of political
expediency the administration
has chosen the wrong
site for its proposed jail,” Diaz
said, continuing that the Mott
Haven community is jusfi ed to
take legal action against the
“city’s intransigence.”
Each of the 24 members
that sit on CB1 voted against
the mayor’s plan to erect the
incarceration facility in their
residential area on Thursday,
May 23.
That vote came exactly a
week after the CB1 Land Use
Committee also unanimously
locked down the proposal as
well.
The board’s Land Use
Ccommittee is chaired by
Beekman’s CEO, Arline Parks
who personally signed off on
the lawsuit.
“This land use process
must be stopped so that the
Bronx jail site can be independently
reviewed and we can
determine the best location
for a new jail, not the quickest,”
she said.