Unique | Migrant tent metropolis in Brooklyn will keep one other 12 months as feds lengthen lease for controversial encampment

The controversial migrant encampment at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Area will stay for an additional 12 months, The Submit has discovered.

The Nationwide Parks Service, which oversees the historic former airfield off Flatbush Avenue, notified metropolis officers Friday it has agreed to the Adams administration’s request for a lease extension to proceed working the two,000-bed tent metropolis.

The unique lease was set to run out Saturday.

“This extension request was completely reviewed and responds to the State of New York’s continued emergency declaration,” wrote Jennifer T. Nersesian, superintendent of Gateway Nationwide Recreation Space, part of the Nationwide Park Service.

“As stewards of this web site, customer entry, public security, and preservation of pure and cultural assets are our prime priorities,” she added. “Our crew has labored to make sure Floyd Bennett Area stays accessible to the general public whereas the lease is in place and can proceed to take action for the extension of the lease.”

For the reason that migrant shelter was arrange, residents of Brooklyn’s Marine Park, the Rockaways and different close by sleepy communities have complained the brand new arrivals are bringing extra shoplifting, panhandling, gutter scams and different unsavory exercise to their neighborhoods.

“The individuals who reside in Rockaway and [southern] Brooklyn have been extraordinarily clear on this: they don’t want a shelter in Floyd Bennett Area,” fumed Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens), upon studying of the extension.

“I’ll hold looking for methods to reverse the shelter-city standing and finish the migrant disaster. We can’t hold pouring taxpayer {dollars} right into a failed challenge that endangers New Yorkers and diverts much-needed metropolis funds from those that want them most.”

Gov. Hochul final 12 months agreed to have the state choose up the $1,733,750 month-to-month lease funds for the town to function the tent shelter, whereas the Huge Apple is on the hook for $625,000 yearly to bus migrant college students away from the transportation desert for varsity.

Final week, dozens of activists, pols and different fed-up New Yorkers rallied exterior the large shelter in a bid to dam the lease extension. The protest included a caravan of greater than 30 autos and was the newest in a sequence of demonstrations in opposition to the asylum-seeker encampment.

The former airfield had change into a hotbed of unrest and violence, with a home assault in December, a gun bust and a string of assault arrests, police stated.

In January, migrants, together with youngsters, needed to be briefly evacuated from the positioning in the midst of the evening as harmful winds raised issues of toppled tents or deadly flooding.

Regardless of the native outrage, Metropolis Corridor has stated the ad-hoc shelter is required to assist accommodate new arrivals as greater than 214,000 migrants poured into NYC over the previous two years.

Offering housing and different providers to migrant arrivals has already value metropolis taxpayers greater than $5 billion.