Kew Gardens Community Board rejects de Blasio's tower jail

Patch

The Kew Gardens community board voted unanimously against the plan for a new local jail advancing to the next stage. Queens Community Board 9 voted unanimously Tuesday night to urge the City Planning Commission not to green light the plan for a new jail in Kew Gardens, which would allow the plan to advance to the city's land use review process.

The planning commission must decide by March 25 whether to certify the jail plan as complete and send the plan through the city's land use review process, known as ULURP. The vote Tuesday is largely symbolic, but city rules say the planning commission must explain any decision that goes against community board recommendations.

 

"The City Planning Commission does irreparable harm by starting the ULURP clock," the community board's resolution states. "This proposal, designed without any communication with the affected communities, will quite simply overwhelm and destroy the small historic residential neighborhood of Kew Gardens, and also adversely affect the adjacent community of Briarwood."

A spokesperson for City Council Member Karen Koslowitz, who represents Kew Gardens, declined to comment on the vote.

 Queens BP Melinda Katz finally chimed in:

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. sharply rebuked the mayor's office last week for what they said was a failure to collaborate with the local communities that would house the new jails.

"We are deeply disturbed by the lack of meaningful local engagement on the borough-based jails project to date," Katz and Diaz Jr. wrote in a letter dated March 8. "The process of developing the borough-based jails system must start anew."

"The irony ... of unveiling a citywide plan for 'modern community-based jails' in the absence of community input is not lost on the boroughs," Katz and Diaz Jr. wrote.

 Admin note: The woman who wrote these articles (and the one on Meeks) is Mara Kaufman, the one who got repressed from reporting on this crucial meeting by the mayor's arbitrarily opaque rules

Melinda Katz supports Rikers shutdown but doesn't say where new Queens tower jail should be located

Queens Chronicle

 
Borough President Melinda Katz last Friday backed Mayor de Blasio’s plan to close the jails at Rikers — but came up short of endorsing the construction of a new 30-story lockup on Queens Boulevard to replace it.

Katz, who announced last month that she is running for Queens district attorney, chose what may be her final State of the Borough address to call for an end to the current jail system.

“Let me be clear,” she said for emphasis. “I have been, and I remain, a strong supporter of closing Rikers Island.


“It is a moral imperative that we overhaul our city’s jail system ... And closing Rikers is an integral part of that.


However, the borough president said, she was “deeply disturbed” that people in Kew Gardens, where a new jail is slated to be built, have not had “meaningful community engagement and input.”


She called for the city to “start anew” and come up with a better plan.“There’s still plenty of time to do it the right way,” she said.

Update:

This is the Kew Gardens town hall meeting concerning the jail QB President Katz obligatorily acknowledged in her speech which she did not engage to attend.