Planned NYC Jails Shrink Again Before Council Vote

NEW YORK — The New York City jails meant to replace Rikers Island will be an average of 95 feet shorter than expected, lawmakers announced Tuesday ahead of a key vote on the plans.

The height reductions ranging from 50 to 155 feet are a response to locals' concerns about the size of Mayor Bill de Blasio's proposed high-rise lockups, City Council members said. The council is slated to vote on the plans Thursday.

"People said these buildings were too large for their neighborhoods, and they listened and fought for changes," Council Speaker Corey Johnson said in a statement. "I thank the de Blasio administration for working with us to better serve these communities."

The proposed jail at the current site of the Manhattan Detention Complex near Chinatown saw the biggest shrinkage of 155 feet. It will now be 295 feet tall, or about 29 stories, instead of 450 feet, the council said.

The Downtown Brooklyn jail is also expected to stretch 295 feet into the sky, a 100-foot drop from its previous height, officials say. The planned facilities in Kew Gardens and Mott Haven will each be 195 feet tall, down from 270 and 245 feet, respectively.

The changes mark an effort to appease community leaders in the four affected boroughs about the collateral effects that such large jails would have on their neighborhoods. The city plans to replace three existing jails in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens and build a new one on the site of the NYPD's Bronx tow pound by 2026, when officials expect to close the Rikers complex.

The council unveiled the reductions the same day de Blasio, a Democrat, announced a $19 million expansion of services for formerly incarcerated people as prison-abolition activists argue the city should fund community needs instead of new jails.

The council attributed the height reductions in part to the city's supervised release program and statewide bail reforms that will put fewer people behind bars while they await trial. The de Blasio administration also cited those factors Monday when it said the city's jail population would fall to 3,300 people by 2026, down from a previous estimate of 4,000.

The city has also tweaked its plans to move 250 jail beds for physically and mentally ill people into public hospitals and add an additional housing unit on each floor in the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Bronx lockups, the council said. Those changes also enabled the heights to shrink, officials say.

City officials initially reduced the size of the jails in March before the start of the public land-use review process that will culminate in the council vote. Lawmakers say the even smaller facilities will fit better into their surrounding neighborhoods in response to community concerns.

Community boards in all four boroughs have opposed the plans over worries about the size of the jails and the city's top-down approach to the review process.

"I am glad to see these critical changes made to the plan, along with the recognition that we need to do everything in our capabilities to reduce our jail system as small as possible," Council Member Stephen Levin, a Democrat whose district includes the Brooklyn jail site, said in a statement.

The $8.7 billion cost estimate for the new jails has not changed despite the size reductions, said B. Colby Hamilton, a spokesperson for the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice.

The de Blasio administration also plans to pour more money into its "Jails to Jobs" intiative to help incarcerated people transition back into their daily lives.

The program's expansion will connect formerly detained people with peer mentors, help them prepare for re-entry while still behind bars and connect them with paid transitional jobs, the mayor's office said Tuesday.

"With Jails to Jobs, we are breaking the cycle of incarceration by making sure people in City custody have the opportunity to learn and grow while in jail and a pathway to stability as they return to their communities," de Blasio said in a statement.