NYC Borough Based Jail Proposed Project – 124-125 White Street, Manhattan Site

NUBC Comment Letter to DEIS dated July 22, 2019

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HIGHLIGHTS

1. The City violated State and City law by failing to hold a public Scoping Session for the
124-125 White Street site.

The preliminary legal steps required for the City to obtain approval for the Project were
taken using 80 Centre Street as the Site for the new jail. After community opposition
during the Public Scoping Session, the City switched to the 124-125 White Street Site
and just continued the ULURP as if there was no Site change. This is against the law.
The law requires that since 124-125 White Street is a completely different site, where
distinct and significant adverse impacts exist, than 80 Center Street. The City must re-
start the ULURP process over again for the 124-125 White Street Site, including holding
a Public Scoping Session for the 124-125 White Street Site.

2. The purported DEIS filed by the City is so insufficient, so full of holes, and lacking of
critical information, that it cannot legally be construed as a DEIS, and the as a result
the Public cannot Fairly Participate in the Review of the Project. The DEIS must be re-
done from the beginning.

Under the law, the purpose of a DEIS is for the Applicant (the City in this case) to present
to the Public an adequate definition of the Project characteristics, so that reasonable
assessments can be made as to the Project’s likely impacts on the Public. A proper DEIS
should address the following factors:

1) What are the actions/plans that will be taken, so the Public can make comments to
such actions?
2) What are the adverse, harmful impacts of such actions, so the Public can make
comments to such impacts?
3) What mitigation plans will be taken to minimize the harmful impacts?

An ill-defined project like the one we have here critically inhibits the Public’s ability to
participate in the environmental review process, and thus deprives the Public of Due
Process under the law.

3. Lack of Required Description of Actions/ Plans

- This DEIS fails to set forth adequately the actions/plans that are required for the
Project. For example, the City has not provided any meaningful details or plans about
the Project such as Design, Lighting, size and manner of any street level retail spaces,
whether there will be community space on ground level, location of vehicular access

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 points to the Project, or the number of emergency generators, how much fuel will be
stored on the Site.

- The DEIS provides no Construction Protection Plan. By the DEIS’s own admission, this
is due to the fact, there are no “detailed plans for the proposed detention facility and
detailed construction logistics” on which to base such a Construction Protection Plan.

- Even in the few instances the DEIS is specific on actions/plans, it does not present
them in an accurate manner. For example, the DEIS states that the height of the new jail
will be 450 ft. However, based upon the little information provided in the DEIS, the new
jail will actually be 490 ft high due to rooftop mechanical bulkheads, parapets, etc.
The DEIS submitted inaccurate renderings of the Project.

- The DEIS presented inaccurate and misleading renderings of the Project, showing the
Project to be of a smaller scale and scope, than what will be. NUBC has engaged a
subject-matter expert in land use, zoning, simulation and visualization, and statistics and
quantitative modeling. Mr. Janes has already found the same problems with the DEIS’s
renderings of the Bronx Jail Site - https://nypost.com/2019/07/05/de-blasio-
administration-used-inaccurate-renderings-for-proposed-bronx-jail-study/ We can
only surmise that the DEIS renderings for the other 2 Jail Sites (Brooklyn and Queens)
suffer from the same fatal flaws. As a result of these misleading renderings, the Public
(and the Applicant) cannot properly visualize, and assess, the huge impact of this Project
on the neighborhood character. NUBC members who have architectural and building
design expertise have prepared accurate models, including 3-D ones, which show how
the Project stands in stark nonconformance with the communities to the north and east
(Chinatown the Little Italy Historic District), and to the west (Tribeca Historic District).

4. Lack of Assessment, and Non-Disclosure, of the Harmful Impacts to the Public

- The DEIS provides no assessment of the harmful impacts of the contaminated soil and
hazardous materials that lie under 124 White Street which was once used a filling
station for 30 years and has the presence of fuel oil storage tanks. The City admits in
the DEIS that Phase II Environmental Assessment is needed to properly assess the
hazardous substances at the Site, but the City has not done such a Phase II Assessment.

- The DEIS sees no need for a study on the impact of the Project on The Public Health,
despite the fact that, by the DEIS’s own admission, the Site is contaminated and
contains hazardous material. This is particularly alarming given the Site’s nexus to
vulnerable populations – the seniors living directly adjacent to the Site, and the multiple
nearby schools clustered around the Site, and the densely packed, low-to-moderate
income residences, and the reliance of the surrounding neighborhoods on the many
small businesses and retail stores whose main source of income is from tourism and
visitation from people who live outside of such communities.

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 - The DEIS provides no assessment of the harmful impacts on the Public from
Construction of the Project, or the Project itself, from disruption to Pedestrian and
Traffic low, including the safety of pedestrians during Construction, vehicular traffic
patterns, and the impact of the Project on the creation of a proposed bike lane along
Centre Street. No data or analysis is provided regarding traffic coming off Brooklyn
Bridge onto Centre Street and then Canal Street, which is the main receptor of traffic to
and from Manhattan Bridge and the Holland Tunnel. No analysis was provided
regarding the daily deliveries of supplies that would be required to operate this new Jail,
and the cumulative effect on the City with all four new Jails with similar delivery needs.

- The DEIS has conducted a faulty air quality assessment based upon stale data from a
monitoring station over ½ mile away. No mention or consideration has been made
regarding the change in the air quality in the neighborhood due to particulate and
hazardous air pollutants released into the air from the 911 terror attack. Nor does the
DEIS do any analysis regarding the harmful impact on the air quality during the
Construction of the Project, despite its acknowledgment of several highly vulnerable
populations residing right next to the Site including the seniors at the Chung Pak senior
housing facility.

- The DEIS analysis of the noise and vibration impact of the Project is deficient. No
analysis was done of the harmful impact of the noise from the mechanical systems that
will be required to operate the Project, nor the harmful impact of the noise from the
Construction. Particular egregious was the lack of analysis regarding the harmful impact
to the Public and the historically relevant nearby buildings from the noise and vibrations
from pile driving that the DEIS has confirmed will be required during Construction.
According to the DEIS, significant pile driving be required due to the “unstable soils” that
exist at the Site, as a result of Collect Pond and its marshes.

- The DEIS provides no assessment of what the negative impact of the Project will be to
valuable archaeological resources relating the local indigenous population which the
DEIS admits exists under a portion of the Site.

- The DEIS provides no assessment regarding the Project’s impact to solid waste
production, despite the fact there will be a huge increase in people that will eat and
work at the Site. Actions needed to handle this increase in population would also have
impact on traffic, air quality, and noise – none of which were acknowledged in the DEIS.

- The DEIS’s open space analysis is flawed. It includes large open spaces that are well
beyond the ¼ mile maximum boundary required under City environmental regulation,
there by misleading the Public about the negative impact the Project has on the open
space in the surrounding communities. At the same time, the DEIS says next to nothing
about how the Project will impact the truly relevant open spaces in the Community
surrounding the Site – Columbus Park and Collect Pond. Columbus Park, an over 120-
year old park, is only 56 feet away from the Site.

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 - The DEIS’s analysis regarding the resulting shadows from the Project are deficient. It
omits to disclose or address the impact that the Project will create on; 1) The
playground at PS 130 on Baxter Street, 2) the plaza at the Jacob Javits Federal Building
West, 3) the Most Precious Blood Church on Baxter, 4) the Eldridge Street Synagogue,
and 5) The Police Building at 240 Centre Street, which is a landmarked building and on
the National Register of Historic Places.

- The DEIS provides no information regarding the impact of disconnecting of the water
main and sewer pipes that run through White Street due to the Project Construction.

- The DEIS provides no assessment on the harmful socio-economic impacts of the

Project and the Construction of such Project. Such harmful impacts include residential
displacements due to adverse, long-term impacts to noise and air quality and fails to
rationally address the business displacement impacts that the Project and the
Construction of such Project will cause, in violation of the City environmental review
regulations. The regulations state that if, as here, “a project would entail construction
for a long duration that could affect the access to and therefore viability of a number of
business, and the failure of those business has the potential to affect community
character, a preliminary assessment for construction impacts on the socio-economic
conditions should be conducted.”

5. Lack of Mitigation Plan for Harmful Impacts

- The DEIS does not provide a Remedial Action Plan to address the contaminated soil
under 124 White Street which will be disturbed during the construction of this project.

- The DEIS provides no mitigation plan for any of the harmful impacts raised in our
letter because they did not identify, study or provide an assessment of them.

6. Failure to Consider Fair Share Analysis

The DEIS does not comply with NYC Charter provisions requiring consideration of the
Fair Share criteria. “A basic principle of a fair city is that, to the greatest extent possible,
all communities should have their fair share of municipal facilities – whether those are
schools, libraries, shelters, parks, prisons or waste transfer stations.” (NY City Council).
The DEIS lacks any consideration of the Fair Share analysis performed by the City’s own
consultant for this Project. In particular, the DEIS must, but does not, address the fact
that the area around the Site is already overburdened with municipal facilities and
explain the omission of a Staten Island Site and how this corresponds to the Fair Share
requirements.

7. Failure to Comply with NY City Charter Provisions relating to ULURP

- The NY City Charter and implementing regulations do not authorize consolidation of

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 4 Sites in 4 separate boroughs into a single ULURP. This is a completely unprecedented.
For example, in 2016 the City-wide Solid Waste Management Plan was implemented by
the siting of transfer stations in each borough, and each site underwent its own ULURP
review.

- The City also violated NY City Charter and its implementing regulations by failing to
Include Community Boards 2 and 3 in the ULURP. A portion of the Site is located in
Community Board 3. Additionally Community Board 2 is an “affected community”
within the meaning of the City Charter regulations. Thus both Community Board 2 and 3
should have been afforded the same opportunity to hold public hearings and opine on
the issue as Community Board 1 had.

8. The Project will Undo Any Community Benefit that had been Given Over 30 Years Ago
in Exchange for the Existing Jails

- When the current Jails were built on White Street, the City promised that a portion of
White Street would be “a community give-back in the form of a public plaza”
(Manhattan Borough President Brewer). In violation of such promise, the Department
of Corrections took over this public space for their own employees’ parking. Now this
new proposal will completely get rid of any public open space, but would instead
replace it with a covered transverse walkway to cross from Centre to Baxter.

- The Chung Pak complex was also a community benefit provided in exchange for the
existing jails. This Project will be devastating on Chung Pak, depriving its residents of
rooftop recreational access during Construction, and perpetually shadows once Project
is completed; severe harmful air quality and noise impacts; and the safety of its
residents due to major disruptive to roadways and sidewalks during the Construction
period. All of the above also applies to Columbus Park.

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