If you're going to jail, it's probably not going to be ideal either way.
http://www.tribecatrib.com/content/e...ght-reductions
On Eve of Vote on Jail Towers, City Council Announces Height Reductions
By CARL GLASSMAN
Posted Oct. 15, 2019
Quote:
Just two days before the City Council’s vote on a controversial borough-based jail plan that included a mammoth 45-story structure in Chinatown, the Council announced on Tuesday that the city is reducing the proposed heights of the four towers. In Manhattan, that means a 295-foot-high, 29-story building, 155 feet lower than had been proposed.
Influential Council members who represent the four impacted districts said in statements that the height reductions have met their demands for smaller buildings.
Councilwoman Margaret Chin, whose district includes the Manhattan Detention Complex at 124 and 125 White Street, to be demolished and replaced by the new jail, said the height reduction was more than she had expected.
“I was really, really happy that the city heard from the community, heard from me, and they were able to do that,” Chin said in a conference call with reporters. “From the beginning I told the city that [the height envelope] they projected is unacceptable.”
The height would roughly match that of the Criminal Court Building next door at 100 Centre Street, Chin said.
The drop in height was made possible, officials said, because of a new estimate for the city’s detainee population in 2026, when the new jails are supposed to be completed. The de Blasio administration announced a few days ago that it expects that number, now over 7,000 city-wide, to be reduced to 3,300 due to cash bail reforms, an expanded supervised release program, and other measures. Until recently, the administration estimated a need for 5,000 beds in the city’s jail system.
|
Quote:
The Manhattan Detention Complex would be demolished to make way for the new facility. The MDC includes the south tower or “Tombs,” which underwent a seven-year, $43 million renovation before re-opening in 1983, and the 19-story north tower, completed in 1990. Asked why the buildings could not undergo an interior overhaul and house the reduced population, Chin said, “The building is very, very old. We want to create a condition in there where services and activities are provided to the detainees while they’re there.”
The city estimates that the four facilities will cost $8.7 billion, but the true cost is not known because the buildings have yet to be designed.
Chin has expressed concern over the impact of demolition and construction on the tenants of Chung Pak, a low-income senior residence next door to the jail. “We’re still waiting from the city to finalize how the seniors building will be protected,” she said, noting that the jail would be set back 40 feet from Chung Pak. She also said an agreement with the city is being worked out over the renovation of heavily used Columbus Park, especially its bathrooms and pavilion.
In the meantime, with the reduction of the jail’s height, Chin was clearly happy to declare victory.
“We got what we fought for,” she said.
|
https://nypost.com/2019/10/15/propos...uncil-support/
Proposed new jails slash height in bid to win City Council support
By Rich Calder
October 15, 2019
Quote:
The four new borough-based jails being proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio to replace scandal-scarred Rikers Island have been significantly slashed in height, by an average of nine stories, to help secure key City Council support ahead of Thursday’s vote on the $8.7 billion project.
The trimmings for the planned high-rise lockups — eyed for every borough but Staten Island — were announced by city officials Tuesday, two days before the Council is expected to approve building the jails as part of a larger effort to shutter Rikers Island’s prison complex by 2026.
“From the start, one of my top priorities was to achieve a serious reduction of the height of the mayor’s proposed jail… ,” said Councilwoman Margaret Chin (D-Manhattan), who successfully fought to reduce the size of a planned prison tower eyed for the smaller current site of the Manhattan Detention Complex on White Street from 45 stories to 29 stories.
“The 155-foot drop [in height] is the largest reduction of the four borough-based jails and ensures that the proposed jail will no longer be out-of-scale with the neighborhood.”
|
Quote:
Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn) was also able to negotiate reducing the size of a new jail planned for the site of the Brooklyn Detention Complex in Boerum Hill by 10 stories, from 39 floors to 29. Levin said the previous plan “was simply too big and out of context with the neighborhood.”
Both Levin and Chin had previously said they couldn’t back the plans for the new jails unless key reductions were made.
The city has also agreed to lower the height of a jail planned for the site for the NYPD’s Bronx tow pound in Mott Haven, from 24 floors to 19, and another eyed for the currently shuttered Queens Detention Center in Kew Gardens, from 27 floors to 19.
Councilwomen Diana Ayala (D-Bronx) and Karen Koslowitz (D-Queens), who represent the affected neighborhoods, had previously agreed to back the mayor’s jail plan.
Council Speaker Corey Johnson, a longtime supporter of closing Rikers’ jails, also came out in support of plans to build the new jails Tuesday after previously refusing to take a position on them.
|
Quote:
Although the newly revised jail plan now appears to have overwhelming council support heading into Thursday’s vote, some pols still oppose it.
For instance, Councilman Rafael Salamanca (D-Bronx) says he can’t back the plan unless the city agrees to move fast and shut down the Vernon C. Bain Center, an 800-bed floating barge jail parked off the South Bronx in his district. It is considered an “annex” of Rikers that has been plagued with many of the same allegations of inhumane treatment of inmates. The city plans to shut the barge down in 2026, but Salamanca says that is too long.
De Blasio predicts the city’s jail population — currently about 7,000 inmates — will drop to 3,300 by 2026, when Rikers is expected to close and the new jails open. He is banking on state bail reforms that went into effect in April, the expansion of a city-funded supervised release program and other initiatives aimed at driving the prison population down. There were about 11,000 inmates in city lockups in 2014 when the mayor came into office.
|
__________________
NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
|