BY JASON COHEN
A group of residents are
fi ghting to keep a boroughbased
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 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 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 nonprofi
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 mixeduse
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.
3 BRONX WEEKLY February 23, 2020 www.BXTimes.com
Mott Haven sues to halt ‘illegal and political’ Bronx jail
The future site of the jail in Mott Haven. Photo Courtesy Diego Beekman Petition
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