The city’s COVID-19 budget crisis has caused the de Blasio administration to push back plans to replace Rikers Island — and may mean that four smaller jails will never get built.
The $8.7 billion scheme for new jails in every borough except Staten Island, was scheduled to be done by the fall of 2026.
Now they won’t be completed until August 2027, according to a City Planning Commission presentation given by administration officials Monday.
De Blasio and many of the City Council members who approved the new jails plan last year will be term-limited out of office by 2022– years away from the revised completion date.
De Blasio has already cut spending for the massive plan by $500 million in this year’s budget, and pushed costs into 2029, prompting the council’s finance director to note, “Continued delays of these projects into years beyond the current administration decrease the chances of these jails being built.”
News of the new timeline was first reported by the media outlet The City.
The closure of Rikers Island depends on a continuing shrinking of the jail population at a time when some categories of crime including murder are rising in the city.
The de Blasio administration also facing three lawsuits over the new jail locations, including one recently green lighted by a Manhattan judge who found government officials hadn’t completed required reviews for a replacement facility at 125 White St. Two other suits are pending in The Bronx and Queens.
Still the Dept. of Correction is moving ahead with plans to demolish and rebuild the current Manhattan Detention Facility known colloquially as ‘The Tombs’ at 125 White St with a smaller lockup. The notorious downtown slammer is scheduled to close by the end of November.
“The city’s commitment to closing the jails on Rikers Island has not wavered,” Colby Hamilton, a spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, told The Post.
“The updated schedule reflects the ongoing dynamics forced on the city by the COVID-19 pandemic. The completion of new, modern facilities closer to communities and families will remain within the 10-year time frame established by Mayor Bill de Blasio. We will continue working diligently to achieve this goal shared by New Yorkers,” Hamilton said.
He added, “The impact of the updated schedule on the borough-based jail project cost remains under review.”
Former New York state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, who led a panel that recommended closing Rikers and replacing it with smaller lockups across the city, blasted the delay.
“It is unacceptable for the city to further delay closing the jails on Rikers,” Lippman said.
“The events of 2020 – from the pandemic to the economic crisis to a sharpened focus on racial equity – have made the need to shut down institutions of racial injustice like Rikers more, not less urgent,” Lippman said.
A spokesman for Council Speaker Corey Johnson said, “Closing Rikers Island remains a high priority for the City Council, and we are committed to making this a reality.”