New Yorkers sound off on lengthy and expensive Brooklyn borough-based jail proposal
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Construction of Queens’ borough-based jail’s parking garage. The department of design and construction heard testimony on a proposed contract for the construction of the brooklyn borough-based jail on thursday, March 23, 2023. Eagle file photo by jacob kaye
By Jacob Kaye
The Department of Design and Construction on Thursday got an earful from New Yorkers upset over a proposed construction contract that would likely delay the closure of Rikers Island by at least two years.
The agency held a public hearing on a nearly $3 billion proposed contract for the construction of Brooklyn’s borough-based jail, the first such proposed contract for any of the four total borough-based jails planned to be built in the coming years.
The proposed contract, which was announced a little over a week ago, would go to Tutor Perini Corporation based in New Rochelle, and would not expire for 2,317 days after the issuance of the contract – or around two and a half years past the city’s legally-mandated deadline to close Rikers Island.
Dozens of New Yorkers gave testimony during the DDC’s public hearing, and not one said they were in support of the current terms of the contract.
“Six more years of humanitarian catastrophe at Rikers Island is unacceptable,” said Edwin Santanta, a community organizer with Freedom Agenda. “The city must take all necessary action to expedite the construction of the borough-based jails to comply with the requirements to close Rikers by 2027.”
A 2021 city law dictates that Rikers Island, New York City’s troubled jail complex, must close as a jail by 2027. As a replacement, the city has committed to building four borough-based jails – one each in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx – that will be able to house 3,300 detainees, a population far smaller than the current population on Rikers Island.
Though construction has begun on the parking facility that will later be adjacent to Queens’ Kew Gardens borough-based jail, the Brooklyn facility is currently on track to be the first to be fully completed.
The contract discussed Thursday is the first to be proposed for any of the borough-based facilities.
“Many components of the borough jail plan is unquestionably a huge undertaking, and one that would not be as far along as it is without the leadership and dedicated work of DDC staff, but this draft contract threatens New York City's ability to comply with the law,” said Zachary Katznelson, the executive director of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform.
“It puts substantial completion of the Brooklyn jail 20 months after the legal deadline to close Rikers,” he added. “The Brooklyn jail has been planned to be the first of the four borough jails to be completed, and unless that order shifts, at this rate for completion of the new borough system won't take place until next decade.”
City Councilmember Christopher Marte, who represents Chinatown, where Manhattan’s borough-based jail facility will be located, said that he was concerned that the proposed contract could spell similar issues for whatever contract is proposed for the Manhattan jail.
“These contract challenges can only mean the same fate for the Manhattan jail site in my district in Chinatown, where elements of demolition have already started without a full plan in place, a clear budget or the promise to finish on schedule,” Marte said. “I demand the city to be transparent about these budget and timeline issues, and take every viable option to maintain their original timeline in order to close Rikers Island.”
Though the borough-based jail plan was controversial, 36 of the 49 city councilmembers present for the 2019 vote, voted to pass the plan. Several councilmembers who voted against the plan said they did so because the plan didn’t go far enough, while others said no to the plan because they wanted Rikers Island to remain open.
Those arguments were again heard during Thursday’s public hearing.
Justin Pollock, a member of the Brooklyn Borough-Based Jail Neighborhood Advisory Committee, a group charged with providing oversight to the implementation of the plan, said that the proposed contract shocked him in a number of ways.
He said that was particularly appalled by the price – the original cost for building all four jails was projected to be $8.7 billion, a number that will likely be surpassed if each of the other three jails are equal to or more than the amount proposed for the Brooklyn jail.
“The almost $3 billion price tag is astronomical,” Pollock said. “If approved, it would be the single most expensive building built in the United States based on square footage.”
“If we're going to have true criminal justice reform, we need to use these funds to invest in our communities, build services and infrastructure into the neighborhoods most at risk,” Pollock added.
The proposed contract set off one of the most tense disagreements between the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams’ administration last week.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has forcefully come out against the timeline of the contract, and has called on the administration to do more to ensure it can close Rikers Island by the 2027 deadline.
Several days after the proposal, the mayor said that he’d consider moving detainees into the jail even if it had yet to be completed – last week, a mayoral spokesperson told the Eagle that a significant portion of the jail is expected to be completed by April 2029, which is still more than a year later than the city’s deadline.
“We said it over and over again, and I’m going to continue to state it – we’re going to follow the law,” the mayor said last week. “The plan was flawed but we’re going to follow the law.”
“Because something is not completely finished does not mean that you can’t occupy inmates,” he added. “The law states 2027, that is the law that we’re going to follow. We’re going to follow the law.”
Comments from Thursday’s hearing will potentially be used to adjust the current terms of the contract. The final contract will then be submitted to the Mayors Office of Contract Services for review.
