Plans For New NYC Jails Get Initial Go-Ahead

NEW YORK — Plans for the four new jails meant to replace Rikers Island cleared the first formal step of the city's lengthy public review process on Monday.

The City Planning Commission certified the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice's application for the new lockups as complete, kicking off the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, also known as ULURP.

The plans to build jails in each borough but Staten Island still have several hurdles to clear before they come to fruition, including reviews by the local community boards, borough presidents, the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

The commission questioned city officials about the proposal on Monday but its members do not vote to certify applications. The commission will eventually hear public testimony on the application before deciding whether to approve it.

The lack of a vote nonetheless prompted an outcry from Queens community activists after commission Chair Marisa Lago declared the application certified. "A sham and a shame!" one person shouted.

"This is a steamroller," said Sylvia Hack, who co-chairs Queens Community Board 9's land use committee. "How is it that there is not even a vote, a vote in public, to certify so we know who has voted?"

"If they don't need to vote and it's all up to the department, why even bother?" she added.

The Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice has proposed replacing old jails with new, modern ones in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens and building a lockup from scratch on top of an NYPD tow pound in The Bronx.

The jails are key to Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan to close the notorious Rikers Island complex by 2027. The city aims to reduce the jail population to 5,000 and move detainees to smaller local facilities, which officials say will be safer and offer better access to courts and other services.

De Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson reached a deal last year to use a single land-use application for all four jails. The next step is for affected community boards to review the application. It will be sent within nine days to the boards, which must issue recommendations within 60 days of receiving the application, according to the Department of City Planning's website.

The lockups will be the first project using the design-build method — in which the same contractor handles both the design and construction — to go through the ULURP process, Lago said. The Department of Design and Construction has picked a project management team comprising two firms, AECOM and Hill International, to oversee the work, the Department of City Planning said.

The city is also creating a 10-member "design advisory group" to ensure the designs for the new jails incorporate the feedback that the land-use process will generate, Lago said. That's on top of the so-called neighborhood advisory committees the city has convened to get locals' input.

"Each of the jails is going to have its own neighborhood-specific features so that it integrates with its surroundings," Lago said. "But the final design considerations developed by the design advisory group will be essential in providing guidelines that can apply to all four facilities."

But community activists say the city is just going through the motions to get the plans approved without any real regard for locals' concerns.

Hack called Monday's certification a "desecration of the ULURP process" because she said the city's application lacked important details. City officials who spoke Monday did not have detailed timelines or cost estimates for the new jails.

"The city has taken a checklist approach," said Aida Vernon, a former prosecutor who lives near the site of the proposed Kew Gardens jail. "We have to check these boxes and go through the motions — that’s very much what it’s been."

Clarification: Because the city provided incorrect information, an earlier version of this story misstated the name of one of the firms on the project management team. It is Hill International, not Hill West Architects, the name City Planning Commission Chair Marisa Lago gave on Monday.