Mott Haven sues to halt ‘illegal and political’ Bronx jail
BY JASON COHEN
A group of residents are fi ghting
to keep a borough-based jail from
coming to Mott Haven in 2026.
On Tuesday, February 11, residents
of Diego Beekman Mutual
Housing Association and Walter
Nash fi led a petition against the city
to prevent a jail in Mott Haven from
being built.
The petition seeks to block construction
of the 19-story prison on
320 Concord Avenue and East 141st
Street.
The fi ling argues that grouping
the four-borough jails into one Uniform
Land Use Review Procedure
(ULURP) process was done to circumvent
local land use laws and contends
that the process was illegal
because the city, in its haste for approval,
failed to provide a clear and
suffi cient Environmental Impact
Statement.
In 2019 the city announced it
would close the Rikers Island jails
and create four borough-based prisons
in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens
and the Bronx.
The four facilities are being reviewed
under the ULURP. The Mott
Haven siting is the only location
where a jail isn’t already operating.
The Bronx site is currently a tow
pound for the New York Police Department.
The future site of the jail in Mott Haven. Photo Courtesy Diego Beekman Petition
The proposed Mott Haven jail will
be the only borough-based jail that
will not be located adjacent to a criminal
courthouse.
“Diego Beekman and other local
residents, including Petitioner Walter
Nash, were thus stunned upon
learning in February 2018 that Mayor
de Blasio and Speaker Johnson had,
without any prior notice or consultation
with the community, unilaterally
selected the very same NYPD tow
pound site for the construction of a
massive new jail directly across from
apartments in a residential community
Making Sense of the Census
Julie Menin, Director of NYC
Census 2020 and Isha Sumner, Census
2020 Manager at Garifuna Community
Services.
With less than a month until
New Yorkers complete the census,
NYC Census 2020 is pulling out all
the stops.
On February 11th, we held more
than 60 civil rights-style teach-ins in
all five boroughs as part of “Teachin
Tuesday.” At the teach-ins, New
Yorkers learned about the history of
the census and how it helps distribute
billions of dollars for education,
healthcare, job training, infrastructure,
affordable housing and more.
Attendees were also asked to volunteer
to help the city’s Get Out The
Count campaign, beginning when
the Census Bureau’s self-response
website goes live in mid-March.
Every community has its own
unique interests that relate to the
census, and the teach-ins give us
the opportunity to connect and address
questions about everything
from privacy concerns to impacted
programs.
One of the community groups
that participated in the Teach-in
was Garifuna Community Services
(GSC), an organization that was
awarded funding through NYC Census’s
Complete Count Fund, a community
program that is focused on
census-related education and organizing.
The goal of the awards program
is to ensure full participation
in the 2020 Census by supporting a
large network of local communitybased
organizations considered
messengers of important and sensitive
information within New York
City’s diverse communities. To ensure
their community is counted,
GCS is participating in community
workshops, conducting a Census
Know Your Rights Forum before immigration
intake sessions, knocking
doors, and more. For communities
like the Garifuna, the census
also serves as an organizing tool for
self-determination and visibility for
their community. Garifuna community
members will check “Black”
for race and will write in their Garifuna
indigenous descent.
The stakes could not be higher.
In 2010, only 61.9% of New Yorkers
self-responded; the national average
was 76%. To ensure members of the
Garifuna community are counted
— as well as all New Yorkers — we
must do better, and we only get one
chance.
NYC, let’s make it count!
New Yorkers can begin filling out
the Census online on March 12, 2020
at my2020census.gov.
BRONX TIMES REPORTER,4 FEBRUARY 21-27, 2020 BTR
that has for decades struggled
with an oversaturation of homeless
shelters, drugs, gangs and drug violence,
but has nevertheless made signifi
cant strides in recent years,” the
petition states.
According to the petition, the city
selected Mott Haven without input or
support from the community.
In fact, Mott Haven residents supported
a mixed-income affordable
housing development on the jail site.
Numerous elected offi cials, including
Borough President Ruben
Diaz, Jr., backed that plan, as well as
an alternative site for the jail next to
the Bronx Courthouse, which the petition
says was also not appropriately
considered.
“The mayor and council speaker
broke the law and rigged the process
to saddle a low-income community
of color with a jail, plain and simple,”
said Arline Parks, CEO of Diego
Beekman Mutual Housing Association.
Diego Beekman is a non-profi t affordable
housing complex in Mott
Haven, comprised of 38 apartment
buildings.
In 2016, it proposed a plan to redevelop
the NYPD tow pound site as a
mixed-use complex that would be an
economic anchor for the entire east
end of Mott Haven.
Two years later, Beekman secured
a $25.5 million loan under the NYS
Department of Housing Preservation
and Development’s Green Housing
Preservation Program to support
capital upgrades that remain ongoing,
including substantial upgrades
to property lighting, roofs, façade
and parapet repairs, code-compliant
elevators and solar-energy panels.
“If the NYPD tow pound is redeveloped
as a jail, the tragic result
will resonate for decades to come,”
the petition states. “Future generations
in the historically troubled
Mott Haven neighborhood will be
forced to live with the outcome of a
pre-packaged decision-making process,
in which their interests were
effectively steamrolled for political
expedience.”
Councilwoman Diana Ayala, who
voted to close Rikers and support the
mayor’s plan said, “With reduced
heights and a projected jail population
of 3,300 by 2026, the boroughbased
jail plan will shrink our criminal
justice system and put us on the
path to decarcerat ion.”
Though Salamanca voted in favor
of closing Rikers Island he also
voted against the new Bronx facility
and urged Mayor de Blasio to close
the Vernon C. Bain Center, a fl oating
barge jail off Hunts Point, as well.
In May 2019, Community Board 1
voted unanimously against the mayor’s
plan to build a jail in Mott Haven.
“The city’s surprise announcement
to abandon its prior commitment
to Diego Beekman (and also
residents of the nearby Nehemiah
Plan homes) and to instead use the
NYPD tow pound site to erect a jail
came as a total shock to the community,
who believe the proposed jail
site is simply “more of the same” for
a neighborhood that is already overburdened
with six homeless shelters,
supportive housing for the special
needs population, numerous methadone
clinics, and a sewage plant,” the
petition states.
At Borough President Diaz’s
hearing on June 25, 2019, the city
conceded that the ULURP does not
address the relocation of the NYPD
tow pound and further admitted that
an additional environmental review
will need to occur in order to relocate
the tow pound. It remains unclear
where the hundreds of cars
will go and how that will impact the
environment.
NYC Law Deartment. spokesman
Nick Paolucci provided a statement
addressing the petition.
“The city is still reviewing the
claims in the litigation but stands by
the process by which we worked with
neighborhoods, community and the
council to develop the plan to build
a smaller, borough-based jail system
and achieve the moral imperative of
closing the jails on Rikers Island,”
Paolucci said.
/my2020census.gov