Queens Homeowners To Sue City Over Kew Gardens Jail Plan

KEW GARDENS, QUEENS — A group of homeowners in Kew Gardens, Forest Hills and Briarwood is planning to sue the city in a last-ditch effort to stop a new jail from going up in their neighborhood and get the mayor's office to return to the drawing board.

The group, which calls itself the Community Preservation Coalition, is preparing to file an Article 78 lawsuit over the city's decision to approve building a new jail in Kew Gardens, part of a $9 billion plan to replace the detention facilities on Rikers Island with a new jail in every borough except Staten Island by 2026.

Article 78 refers to a civil law that empowers New Yorkers to challenge decisions made by public agencies or officials on the grounds that it was unlawful, arbitrary or capricious.

"We really want them to do a meaningful review," Kew Gardens Civic Association President Dominick Pistone told Patch in an interview. "We don't think they've fulfilled their obligations under the City Charter."

(Keep up with news in Forest Hills by subscribing to Forest Hills Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The New York City Charter lays out a series of design and funding details that officials must include for a capital project to be approved by the mayor.

Members of Queens Community Board 9, which voted unanimously against the Kew Gardens jail plan last year, previously accused the mayor's office of failing to meet those requirements in a Sept. 27 letter to the City Council.

The Kew Gardens Civic Association, which is helping spearhead the legal effort, sent a letter to homeowners Wednesday soliciting contributions to fund the lawsuit, pitching it as "an investment in preserving your home," according to a copy obtained by Patch.

The coalition has hired Klein Slowik, a law firm that specializes in land-use claims, to represent it in the legal battle, the letter says.

"Our borough-based jails plan is the culmination of years of collaboration with local elected officials and the communities they represent," City Hall spokesperson Avery Cohen said in an emailed statement to Patch.

"We will vigorously defend our work in court as we move forward with our commitment to closing Rikers Island and create a justice system that is smaller, safer and fairer."

The Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice plans to build a 19-story, 886-bed jail in Kew Gardens to replace the existing Queens Detention Center, which is used to train corrections officers and to house men who are scheduled to appear next door in Queens County Criminal Court.

"Closing Rikers Island and opening community-based facilities is not only beneficial for New York City’s corrections officers and incarcerated population, but also beneficial for the Kew Gardens community,” City Council Member Karen Koslowitz, who represents Kew Gardens, said in 2018, when Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration unveiled plans for the four new jails.

The City Council voted to approve the combined four-jail plan in October after months of negotiations with the mayor's office to reduce the sizes of the jails and secure deal sweeteners for the neighborhoods where the jail would rise.

Pistone, the Kew Gardens Civic Association president, said his opposition to the Queens jail stems from the way the city handled the review process — not NIMBYism, which refers to an acronym for "not in my backyard."

Discussions of the jail proposal largely happened behind closed doors, among a select group of stakeholders known as neighborhood advisory committees, or in private meetings.

"The mayor's idea of community input is we get to pick the color of the drapes," Pistone said. "I'd like them to really sit down with us and talk about what this is going to look like."

He also cited the mayor's office decision to lump its reviews of the four jails into one land-use application to speed up the approval process, which prompted Bronx residents to file a similar lawsuit against the city last summer.

"They sprung this on everybody," Pistone said of the city's approach. "It was a done deal as far as they were concerned."