Brooklyn House of Detention Plans Falter
Ideas for adding new uses to the Brooklyn House of Detention seem to be going nowhere. After the Observer reported that the city was giving up on its plan to allow for retail and condos jail because of a lack of developer interest, the Brooklyn Paper followed up last week with an article saying there’s…
Ideas for adding new uses to the Brooklyn House of Detention seem to be going nowhere. After the Observer reported that the city was giving up on its plan to allow for retail and condos jail because of a lack of developer interest, the Brooklyn Paper followed up last week with an article saying there’s been talk of putting a new middle school in the jail at Atlantic and Smith. This week, though, the paper files a story saying city has officially abandoned the school-jail proposal. The condo plan was originally floated because the city wants to make the jail’s 2012 reopening and expansion (it’s supposed to go from 749 to 1,469 inmates) more palatable to the surrounding community. Last week Marty Markowitz told the Daily News that he’s still searching for “creative ideas for the site.”
Sorry Bids Shove Shiv in City’s Plans to Expand Brooklyn Jail [NY Observer] GMAP
Jail Middle School is Sentenced to Death [Brooklyn Paper]
Lock ‘Em Up [Brooklyn Paper]
No go for new Condominium Complex [NY Daily News]
HPD, MIRP, AHC, LIHTC’s, 95/5, 420c? What the hell are you talking about? Whatever yousaid, it sounds like a bunch of garbage and won’t happen anyway. Rikers Island is in Queens.
Here’s a not so creative idea: demolish and rebuild as a mixed-income development using tax-exempt bonds, reso A funds, housing trust funds. HPD would probably totally dig this, some MIRP or City Capital might be in order.
Also, tap into some AHC funds and transfer the land for a buck. Get the borough pres to show-up and kick in some cash. Don’t forget those LIHTCs for the low-income units.
Throw in some big box retail on the ground level, the appraised rents in the area will probably rock- watch out for the 95/5 though!
Just for good show, have the developer partner up with a community non-profit that will manage the project and get your 420c… then spread the love. Have a ground-breaking full of smiling faces and community leaders. Maybe even the mayor will show.
Then build the jail on some cheap land in Queens.
PRESTO! Instant affordable housing project. Enjoy!
I don’t see what the big deal is with having a jail share a block with condos, retail, offices, a hotel or a school. Entrances would be on opposite sides of the block — that’s an enormous distance in urban terms. I don’t even know what all goes on in some of the buildings on the opposite side of my block.
I live in the area. I knew the jail was there when I bought in 2005 and I knew it might reopen. I don’t particularly mind that it’s there, though I do wish there was some additional activity on the block to help connect the parcel to the rest of the neighborhood. Every neighborhood has good stuff and bad stuff, old stuff and new stuff, and I’m fully prepared to accept that bad stuff in mine, though I do wish that people here and elsewhere wouldn’t moan and groan and piss about every new proposal and project.
Maybe if people were more reasonable and open minded then DOC wouldn’t be having such a hard time finding a partner willing to be creative and help make some neighborhood-friendly improvements to this block. Instead we’re likely to end up with the status quo — a big ugly jail surrounded by nothing.
Over 2000 inmates are transported to court dates in Brooklyn within any given week. The Brooklyn House predates the recent real estate development in the community and anyone purchasing in the area should have known that having a working jail in their midst was a definite possibilty. This jail will reopen as is if no agreeable alternative for a mixed use building is found. Relocating the entire jail to another community is not an alternative because of this buildings proximity to the court buildings. The DOC budget for transporting prisoners between Rikers and the various borough courthouses is going through the roof in part due to escalating gas prices. In addition, the facilities on Rikers are in serious need of repair and the other problem is the issue of evacuation in the post-Katrina era. The island sits in the east river near Laguardia airport and is mostly landfill. Flooding and radon gas seepage is a serious problem. If a hurricane, plane crash or some other tragic event were to occur, it would be impossible to evacuate the 10,000 inmates and staff from the island via the three lane bridge adjacent to East Elmhurst. The Federal government mandated that a viable evacuation plan be developed and there is none. DOC is under numerous court mandates like producing inmates in court, to providing access to attorney’s in a resonable amount of time. Many mandates are not met because Rikers is just too far out. When the inmates sue because the mandates aren’t met, the city pays big. Reopen the jail as is, find another Brooklyn location that will hold an additional 800 inmates and call it a day. New Brooklyn Heights/Cobble Hill residents deal with it. The old residents did.
The truth is that this jail was here before the names “Boerum Hill” and “Cobble Hill” were even invented.
I can’t believe they would do this either. Yes it is close to the courthouse, but, they should only house the people in this location that have court dates in the very near future, maybe 3 days to a week or something. NOT 1500!!!
Please, please bring back the jail! If you put, say Martha Stewart in charge of its design, I think you’d get a lot more community support. I have to laugh every time I even think about it. House 1500 inmates on Atlantic Ave. in cobble hill? The genius of that is just unfathomable. Who said New York couldn’t be made even more chaotic? Now, maybe they could put a coal mine in Park Slope, or an airport in Brooklyn Heights. What about a NASCAR track in Clinton Hill? Or an oil refinery in Bay Ridge? How about cutting down the trees in Prospect Park to grow corn for ethanol? And please, more jails everywhere!
11:58 states that the city has not evaluated alternatives, but that is not the case. Although these are not the alternatives that 11:58 wants compared, these are the city’s choices:
1. Re-open, and possibly expand, the House of Detention where it is, as-of-right without going through ULURP, to the objection of Boerum Hill residents and many of their elected representatives.
2. Site selection and ULURP for a new jail elsewhere, over enormous opposition of that community and its elected officials.
I credit Commissioner Horn for going as far as he has to try to make this as much of a ‘win-win’ as possible. If this had been the Ghouliani administration, it would have just happened without a single meeting with the community.
Turn that into affordable housing instead of a tax dollars detention house. Maybe the prisoners will stop committing crimes.