Manhattan Borough Prez Wants City To Reduce Future Jail's Height

CHINATOWN, NY — As the city gears up for a crucial hearing Wednesday morning regarding the de Blasio administration's plans to replace Rikers Island with four borough-based jails, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer is urging the city to lower the height of the proposed jail in Lower Manhattan.

Brewer officially approved the city's sweeping plan to drastically reduce the jail population and close the infamous Rikers Island — but her approval comes with some caveats she wants the city to address.

For one, the jail's proposed height of about 450 feet should be lowered, she wrote — especially since the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice has announced its new jail population projection would be down to about 4,000 people from the current 7,600 under the larger plan to replace Rikers with four lock-ups.

Accounting for swing space, that rounds out to be about 1,150 for each of the jail sites in all boroughs but Staten Island, according to the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice

In Manhattan, the city wants to demolish the existing Manhattan Detention Complex at 125 White St. and rebuild a new, larger jail.

"I have yet to meet anyone who does not believe the proposed facility is too tall, bulky, and grossly out of scale with the surrounding buildings and community," Brewer wrote. "This application is seeking 30% more floor area ratio than what is allowed under current zoning with little to no explanation of why such height and bulk is needed."

Her recommendations to the city are merely advisory under the city's lengthy public review process called the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP. That process ends with a vote in City Council.

Brewer also detailed a lengthy list of asks from the city — like doubling community facility space under the project to 40,000 square feet and designing the jail to be re-adapted for other uses if the inmate population further decreases.

But her ultimate approval hinges on her focus to support closing Rikers Island.

"Despite the opposition to the applications as presently proposed, there is an overwhelming sentiment that we must remember: Rikers Island must close. From its inception as a jail facility in the 1930s, it has been a site that is not only unfit for habitation of any kind due to its past as a dumping ground for urban fill, but a site that has disproportionately punished generations of people in poverty," she wrote.

But two months after the announcement of the possibility of a shorter jail facility in Manhattan — a key concern of some neighbors — the city has yet to say how the size of the buildings could be reduced.

Updated information is expected in the coming weeks, the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice said Tuesday — though that's what the office told Patch two months ago.

"As New York City moves forward on transforming our justice system, the City will continue working in partnership with each community and local elected officials to ensure we create the best possible plan," a spokesperson for the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice said.

Groups of neighbors adamantly opposed to the larger jails slammed Brewer's approval — noting the Bronx and Queens beeps disapproved the de Blasio administration's plan in their respective boroughs. Lower Manhattan's Community Board 1 also voted against the plan.

Brewer's recommendations "focused on the color of the frosting of this half-baked cake, instead of substantive issues," Boroughs United and Neighbors United Below Canal said in a statement.

Though they applauded the concerns Brewer raised — like the construction impacts on a neighboring senior building and small businesses — they said: "We are disappointed that it falls short of holding Mayor DeBlasio accountable for the risks, danger and waste his plan presents to the community."

A rep for Brewer said she has pushed for transparency from the beginning — one example being a task force she formed last year.

"BP Brewer has been transparent through every step of the way, starting with her call for the administration to be more transparent themselves about the plans in the first place. From the beginning of this process, BP Brewer has said that Rikers needs to close, and we need criminal justice reform now," Brewer's rep Courtney McGee said.