City Dumps Plans For $300K Toilet Near Prospect Park

WINDSOR TERRACE, BROOKLYN — The city has dropped plans to put a self-cleaning toilet on Prospect Park South.

Department of Transportation abandoned its hopes of installing an automated public toilet at Prospect Park Southwest and 16th Street after a heated Community Board committee meeting last month, officials said.

“After discussions with Community Board 7, DOT has decided to explore other possible locations for the automatic public toilet,” said a DOT spokesperson.

The agency decided not to pursue its public toilet plans after a hoard of outraged Windsor Terrace residents gathered at a transportation committee meeting on Jan. 29 to pooh-pooh the project.

DOT project manager Brandon Budelman tried to pitch the 25-cents-to-use toilet as an asset to the area, describing the 6-foot 7-inch by 12-feet facitlity as “attactive” and boasting, “it cleans itself.”

But residents balked at the location — which they said was incongruous to the residential block and might attract homeless people — and the $300,000 installation price tag.

"Is this addressing a specific problem," asked a local woman, "or just dumping it there?"

After the public hearing, the transportation committee voted against supporting the toilet, according to Cesar Zuniga, the Community Board 7 chairperson.

Had Windsor Terrace approved the plans, this would have been only the sixth toilet to be installed since the city bought a bunch of $175,000 toilets from a company now owned by JCDecaux in 2006.

The facility is one 20 self-cleaning toilets bought by the city during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s tenure that have proven difficult to unload.

Photo courtesy of the Department of Transportation