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Council approves fraught Bronx hospital housing project for former detainees
The City Council greenlit a contentious hospital housing project in the Bronx on Thursday, bucking opposition from the local councilmember and Mayor Eric Adams’ administration. But it may be up to the next mayor whether the project ever gets built in its original location.
The council voted 36 to 9 with three abstentions to approve an 83-unit apartment building known as Just Home, a housing development on the site of the public hospital Jacobi Medical Center. The building will primarily serve former Rikers Island detainees who have serious medical conditions such as late-stage cancer or kidney disease – a population that has triggered fierce opposition among residents of the Morris Park neighborhood. The approval comes in spite of protest by Republican Councilwoman Kristy Marmorato, who represents Morris Park, marking a rare instance of the body voting against the local representative on a land-use matter.
Council members agreed to lease a vacant six-story building on the Jacobi campus, which is owned by Health + Hospitals, to the Fortune Society, a Long Island City-based nonprofit that will develop the site and provide on-site supportive services.
The approval, typically the last step for new developments, comes amid uncertainty for the future of Just Home. The Adams administration, which previously supported the project, has maneuvered to relocate the housing from Marmorato’s district in a bid to win her support, and First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro notified Council Speaker Adrienne Adams in a letter on Wednesday that the administration would not advance the development.
The council cannot require Health + Hospitals to build the housing at its planned location. But if Adams does not win re-election in November, some council officials say the vote would allow the next mayor to restore the original proposal.
Calling Mastro’s letter “irrelevant” in a press conference on Thursday, Speaker Adams said that the council’s vote was a matter of adhering to the statutory process, after the H+H board greenlit the project in January 2024.
“It’s alarming that the mayor and his top official have revealed such incompetence in understanding and governing the city, and it is shameful that they are trying to block housing for New Yorkers,” the speaker said. “Thankfully, the two of them will not be relevant to this project in three months.”
City Hall has identified two possible new locations for the Just Home project near Broadway Junction in Brooklyn, where there is support for the project from Councilwoman Sandy Nurse, according to Mastro’s letter.
Nurse, however, said that she supports the project on the Jacobi site.
“I look forward to the Just Home project opening in Councilmember Marmorato’s district,” she said. “I recently cut the ribbon on a large supportive housing project for formerly incarcerated people in my own district and am building a strong partnership with the organization. I hope Marmorato embraces the Fortune Society, since it will be in her backyard.”