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BRONX TIMES REPORTER, M BTR ARCH 22-28, 2019 3
Borough President Diaz (c) during a protest of the Mott Haven jail site.
Schneps Media/Alex Mitchell
BPs Diaz, Katz
protest mayor’s Mott
Haven jail plan
BY ALEX MITCHELL
When Borough President Ruben
Diaz, Jr. said that he would continue to
make a case why an NYPD tow pound
at 320 Concord Avenue in Mott Haven
is the wrong location for jail he wasn’t
exaggerating.
He teamed up with fellow Borough
President Melinda Katz of Queens to
send Mayor Bill de Blasio a scathing
letter that criticized the city’s jail plan
on Friday, March 8.
Specifi cally, the letter expressed
“substantial concerns” regarding the
plan, while it also condemned what
Diaz and Katz called a lack of community
input on scoping from de Blasio’s
offi ce, which has faced scrutiny from
many Bronx offi cials for over a year
now.
“The affected communities simply
were not consulted during the
development of the plan,” the letter
stated.
According to the city’s plan, the
above-grade Bronx tow pound parcel
will be be leveled to make way for a 26
story, 1.5 million square foot jail adjacent
to the Bruckner Expressway by
East 138th Street.
Additionally, the World’s Fair Borough,
Queens, would also be getting a
1.9 million square foot facility in Kew
Gardens as part of de Blasio’s Rikers
Island phase out plan.
“We have emphasized the importance
of community input in the development
of this and, in particular,
the siting and design of any new jails,”
the letter also stated, calling the plan
ironic due to this community based
jail plan lacking input from the residents
themselves.
In the case of the Bronx’s anticipated
facility, the land at Concord Avenue
property had been scoped in previous
years, just not by the city.
Diego Beekman Mutual Housing,
which manages several properties surrounding
the tow yard, had been trying
to purchase the city-owned lot to
create a super block of affordable housing
with a supermarket connected to
the complex.
“What we’re saying is the way
they went about selecting this site, the
fact that this community has already
toughed it out and that the community
has an actual plan for (this spot),
this is just not an acceptable location,”
Diaz had previously said.
The borough presidents even referred
to Mott Haven as “one of America’s
greatest urban success stories.”
Meanwhile, the letter also expressed
that there are better sites in
the Bronx and Queens to place the two
anticipated jails that sit closer to civic
centers.
Furthermore, the two BP’s made it
clear to the mayor that there’s plenty
of time to start the process over since
the closure of Rikers is still a decade
away.
“There is still opportunity to restart
the borough-based jail planning,
this time in collaboration with communities
while continuing to employ
smart criminal justice strategies,” the
letter stated.
One site considered and seemingly
a more desirable Bronx location was
adjacent to the Bronx Hall of Justice
on East 161st Street, which Diaz and
other city councilmembers such as
Raphael Salamanca, Jr. advocated in
favor of, citing the Lippman Commission’s
fi ndings that jails are better off
in close proximity to civil centers such
as courthouses.
Diaz and Katz also expressed their
support of closing Rikers Island, just
in a more collaborative, mutually benefi
cial way.
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