City Planning approves Mott Haven jail, three other sites
BY ALEX MITCHELL
City offi cials agreed to
go through with its plan
to construct a $2 billion,
24-story jail in Mott Haven,
along with other jail sites
in Queens, Manhattan and
Brooklyn.
The City Planning Commission
voted to approve
the land use procedure for
Mayor de Blasio’s year and
a half long effort to phase
out Rikers Island by shifting
the burden on to a borough
based jail system on
Tuesday, September 3.
The CPC vote was 9 to
3, with the agency’s Bronx,
Queens and Staten Island
representatives casting the
dissenting votes.
The full block Bronx
prison site is currently an
NYPD tow pound at 320
Concord Avenue, the former
grounds of Lincoln
Hospital, off Bruckner Boulevard.
With an anticipated
new address of 745 E. 141st
Street, the jail’s current design
includes a layout of 1,
440 inmate beds along with
an adjacent affordable housing
complex that will have
31,000 feet of community
space on its ground fl oor
and below ground parking
for 575 vehicles, explained
the Mayor’s Offi ce of Criminal
Justice deputy director
Dana Kaplan.
While the closure of Rikers
Island has been widely
supported in the political
arena, the approved, Bronx
jail’s replacement location
has been been sharply criticized
by many local elected
offi cials, activists and residents.
The elevated plot of land
is surrounded by schools,
some auto body shops and
by Diego Beekman Mutual
Housing’s extensive, housing
campus that provides
affordable rentals for one
thousand residents spread
across 38 rehabbed buildings.
Prior to the jail proposal
which was announced in
February, 2018, Beekman
along with its CEO Alrine
Parks aimed to purchase
the tow pound from the
city to expand its housing
while also bringing in community
Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. during a jail hearing on Tuesday,
June 25. FIle Photo
amenities such as a
sorely-needed supermarket
in an area often discribed
as a food desert.
Beekman sued the city
over its proposed use of the
site, rallying the support of
Borough President Ruben
Diaz, Jr. and Congressman
Jose E. Serrano, whom protested
the jail with Parks
publically on multiple occasions.
“It is unfortunate that
the City Planning Commission
has declined to listen to
the serious concerns of the
people of my borough, and
has instead chosen to move
forward with a plan to close
Rikers Island that builds a
new jail in the wrong place,”
Diaz said upon the news of
the CPC vote.
The right place, according
to Diaz is adjacent to
the Bronx Hall of Justice on
East 161st Street.
Specifi cally, next to a
lesser-used annex of the
Bronx family court facility,
combining that with an
adjacent vacant site next to
the Bronx Hall of Justice on
East 161st Street; doing so to
“construct a modern court
and detention facility that
meets the needs and concerns
of all impacted stakeholders,”
he said.
In response to Diaz’s
proposed alternative site,
Kaplan said that utilizing
the family court site would
require the structure to be
built even taller and in an
awkward confi guration that
would create a whole slew of
site issues that include an
unobstructed line of sight.
Opponents of the jail
also criticized the city saying
that it bundled all of
the proposed facilities into
one uniform land use review
procedure (ULURP)
for the sake of political expediency.
“The administration
has weaponized the land
use process against the
Bronx in order to protect
their plans to build a new
jail on the wrong site,” the
borough president said.
The city council also
voted on the jail plan on
Thursday, September 5.
Although the Bronx
Times Reporter went to
press prior to said hearing,
that vote is essentially
a formality, according to
sources, because Councilwoman
Diana Ayala, the
area’s representative, supports
the project.
The city’s new prison facilities
are expected to be
completed by 2026, according
to the city.
3 BRONX WEEKLY September 8, 2019 www.BXTimes.com
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