Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.
My name is Martha Montanez and I am a current New York City college student and resident of the borough of the Bronx. I am writing to express concerns about the future of my Concord Avenue neighborhood. I think that you should reconsider the specified location of your proposal to build a new jail facility in Mott Haven in the south Bronx as one of the 4 locations set to replace Rikers Island. A different location should be selected for the Bronx because the construction for and incorporation of these facilities is bound to disrupt the neighborhood and have a negative impact on the residents that live here. The residents here, I included, are concerned about how transportation, residential safety, and quality of living will be affected.
According to your proposed plan, the prospective Bronx facility is set to be the one that requires a completely new complex to be constructed. This new construction brings along with it a host of communal disturbances. Things like how transportation, traffic, and air quality will be affected should be clearly addressed. Although Neighborhood Advisory Committees (NACs) have been created to help advocate for local concerns, they only produce advisory documents, and their proposed guidelines do not address the inevitable traffic congestion that is bound to increase in this neighborhood and the residual effects it will have on residents. The suggested guidelines do not incorporate adequate community input or consideration of details about the construction and the communal effects it will have. This area in the South Bronx already deals with unsatisfactory circumstances in these aspects; therefore, construction of the new facility would only decrease its caliber.
Local residents have many concerns associated with the correlation with the introduction of a new facility in the Bronx and the influx of incarcerated/ criminalized individuals into the neighborhood; especially if parts of these buildings will be available to the community and used to integrate criminals back into society. This raises concerns for individuals like myself who have family, and small children that are living and growing up in this neighborhood. This will mean that they will have an increased opportunity to encounter criminals. Residents are concerned that bringing a jail into the neighborhood would undo the efforts of local advocates to reduce gang violence in the area, as members of rival gangs would be brought to the jail. This too is concerning for those with family that maneuver through the neighborhood and their safety. A deeper look into the inner workings of the community where the new facility will be built needs to be established. The location chosen for the Bronx is Concord Avenue and East 141st Street in Mott Haven, a neighborhood I know very well from experience, which is already underserved and plagued by a grim social outlook, violence, and disadvantaged residents. Mott Haven is already considered to be a very poor-quality neighborhood and is riddled with cops, and unfavorable social establishments (shelters and drug clinics), giving it an alarming sense of devaluation and uneasiness. Perhaps the neighborhood could better benefit from quality improvements within its core components like the standard of living for residents instead of placing another element of social oppression in its courtyard. This neighborhood does not need another social facility that is going to degrade the quality of living here when it is already quite underserved.
Please reconsider choosing this Mott Haven location for this new jail facility. It would greatly devastate the everyday lives of residents who have to navigate this area daily. Maybe a location closer to the Bronx courthouse would be a better-suited choice. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.