In a dramatic reversal, Mayor Adams’ administration moved Thursday to kill a controversial plan to build a housing complex in the Bronx for former inmates with serious health issues that has sparked deep controversy.
The plan would involve finding a new, unnamed location, though it was unclear Thursday whether the administration can actually stop the “Just Home” plan, which is designed to create more than 80 affordable apartments on the Jacobi Hospital campus in Morris Park.
The City Council, which had just started its hearing on the plan when the Adams administration announced its reversal, is expected to move forward with voting through the project, according to sources in the chamber.
The turnaround comes after the Daily News first reported earlier this week that Randy Mastro, Adams’ first deputy mayor, has been working behind the scenes to derail the initiative. Local communities have for years been opposed to the project, including Republican Councilwoman Kristy Marmorato.
Mastro’s behind-the-scenes machinations come as Adams is facing an exceedingly difficult path to a second term and scrambling to secure support ahead of November’s election amid continued fallout from his federal corruption indictment. Conservative-leaning neighborhoods like Morris Park are seen as critical to any viable political coalition Adams may manage to assemble.
Ahead of Thursday, Mastro ordered officials at Health + Hospitals, which oversees the project, to not show up to provide testimony at the Council’s hearing, sources told The News. Instead, Dr. Mitchell Katz, the CEO of H + H, provided written testimony in which he announced the reversal and said the Adams administration is going to try to advance the project in a “different location.”
“The City is developing a new proposal that would identify a different location for Just Home and also deliver supportive and affordable housing at the Jacobi Hospital site,” Katz’s testimony said. “This approach would ultimately allow more people in need to receive the care and services they deserve.”
Both H+H and Council sources told The News that shift in course is unlikely to come to fruition. In order to switch sites, H+H’s board would need to alter the underlying plan — a hypothetical that a source in the hospital system said is unlikely as its members do not serve at the pleasure of the mayor and have consistently supported the “Just Home” project.
Adams’ spokespeople didn’t immediately return requests for additional comment.
Adams, who has insisted one of his main mayoral focuses is building more housing in every corner of the city, for years backed the plan to construct 83 new apartments in Morris Park for recently released inmates with serious health issues like Stage 4 cancer.
Even as the project drew pushback from local residents who claimed it could jeopardize public safety, Adams defended it, saying it was incumbent on his administration to help house the vulnerable population. But as first reported by The News earlier this week, Mastro, the mayor’s powerful top aide at City Hall, has quietly sought to find ways to block it.
Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan, a Democrat on the Public Sitings Committee, noted Thursday marked the second time this week the administration has blocked agency officials from testifying at a hearing.
Brannan also voiced outrage about Adams’ team getting cold feet about one of its own housing projects at a time that the mayor has advanced ballot proposals for November’s election that would dilute the Council’s say on some housing development matters.
“This mayor doesn’t care about building more housing,” Brannan said. “He just wishes the Council didn’t exist.”
