Plans For New NYC Jails Move To Crucial Hearing

NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan to replace Rikers Island with four new jails will get a crucial public hearing this week before a panel on which its future depends.

The City Planning Commission will hear testimony from New Yorkers Wednesday morning on the proposal to build a new lockup in each borough except Staten Island amid heated public opposition to the plans.

The facilities are a linchpin of de Blasio's effort to shutter the notoriously violent Rikers Island complex by 2026, by when the city expects its jail population will drop to 4,000. The planning commission will not vote on the matter Wednesday, but its decision is a critical part of the land-use review process that the plans must get through for the jails to actually be built.

"Throughout the land use review process, New Yorkers across the city have made it clear they support the goal to close the jails on Rikers Island," said Alacia Lauer, a spokesperson for the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, which has spearheaded the city's push for the new jails. "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."

The de Blasio administration wants to erect brand-new jails in Lower Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, Kew Gardens and Mott Haven in The Bronx. The lockups would replace existing jails in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn, while The Bronx's would go up on the current home of an NYPD tow pound.

Each facility would have 1,150 beds to house a maximum jail population of 4,000 people, the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice says. That's down from the roughly 1,500 beds at each site that the city first proposed last August.

The de Blasio administration argues that the jails will be safer, more efficient and more just, as they will house detainees closer to courthouses and offer better access to services that help them navigate the justice system.

But community boards in all four boroughs have opposed the plans, raising concerns about the size of the jails and the top-down way in which the city has ushered them through the public review process.

Two borough presidents — Melinda Katz of Queens and Ruben Diaz Jr. of The Bronx, have also urged the planning commission to reject the proposal. Both say they support de Blasio's goal of closing Rikers, but dislike the particulars of his plan to do it.

"Although I adamantly support the closing of (Rikers) Island, I must remain steadfast in my opposition to any plan that not only builds a new jail at the wrong location but also refuses to address the legitimate concerns raised by individuals and organizations on all sides of the issue," Diaz, a Democrat, said in a statement Friday.

But the City Planning Commission does not have to listen to the borough presidents, or the community boards, or the activists who have vocally criticized the plans in recent months. The panel is not bound by their recommendations and can approve the proposal over their objections.

The commission can approve the plans outright, modify them or reject them. If they are accepted, they will move on to the City Council, which must approve them by a majority vote if they are to go ahead. That's likely, as Council Speaker Corey Johnson has spoken out in favor of de Blasio's plan to close Rikers.

The commission's hearing is likely to spur more protests. No New Jails NYC, a coalition of activists opposed to building any new lockups, plans to rally at the meeting and decry what it calls a "rigged" process that the jails will sail through.

The group noted in a press release that the mayor appoints a majority of the City Planning Commission's members. The newest member, David Burney, once sat on a task force involved in the plans to replace Rikers.

"The new jails will undoubtedly reproduce human rights abuse of incarcerated people and their loved ones in an ongoing cycle of criminalization," No New Jails NYC said in the Tuesday release.

The City Planning Commission's public hearing will start at 10 a.m. Wednesday at John Jay College of Criminal Justice's Gerald W. Lynch Theater, located at 524 W. 59th St. in Manhattan. The meeting will also be streamed live on the Department of City Planning's website.