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Neighborhood group opposes conversion of Third Street site into citywide intake center, citing charter process concerns
Summary
David Mulkins of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors told Community Board 2 that plans to convert 8 East 3rd Street into a citywide intake and processing center were imposed without required neighborhood notification, hearings, or environmental review, and that residents have pursued a state supreme court challenge.
David Mulkins, president of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, used his public comment time at the Manhattan Community Board 2 meeting to voice opposition to the mayor’s plan to create two citywide intake centers, one at Third Street and another on the Bowery.
Mulkins said the neighborhood has a high concentration of shelters and rehabilitation centers and argued that the conversion of 8 East 3rd Street into an intake-processing facility required prior neighborhood notification and public hearings under the New York City Charter. “In the case of the two citywide intake centers that our mayor just dropped on Third Street and the Bowery, those procedures should have been followed,” he said.
He contrasted the site’s prior use as a shelter where residents could stay for a year or two with the proposed intake model, which he said would bring busloads of people daily who would stay only “a day or two” and include “alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the newly released from Riker's Island.” Mulkins said that unpredictability would change day-to-day street life: “For residents, just walking down the street is now going to involve a constantly shifting set of unknown variables.”
Mulkins said Third Street residents have filed a state supreme court challenge alleging the city sidestepped the procedures the charter requires for changes that may affect public safety and quality of life. He urged coordinated response between Community Boards 2 and 3 because “these two intake centers are literally at the conjunction of community board two and three and will impact both communities equally.”
Why it matters: Mulkins framed the item as a land-use and public-safety concern that, in his view, was advanced without adequate notice or public process. The comment referenced a pending court action rather than a board decision; the board did not take a vote on the matter during the meeting.
