The mayor announced on Tuesday that the city is going to open the Safe Haven shelter that was once scheduled for the former Hampton Inn at 320 Pearl, adjacent to Peck Slip School, due to the freezing temperatures and need for emergency shelter for people living on the street. (Gothamist had the story yesterday.) The mayor’s announcement said the shelter will house 106 people and will be operated by Breaking Ground and will serve “exceptionally vulnerable New Yorkers, including older adults.”

This site was originally proposed by the Adams administration in 2024, and was thwarted by an organization of neighbors and parents at the school after a series of public meetings revealed the plan in detail. The group, PeckSlip Advocates for School Safety, eventually filed an Article 78 proceeding (which allows citizens to challenge city decisions) and the judge supported their case, writing that the approval process for this siting was “significantly and fatally flawed.”

In his ruling, the judge acknowledged that the city has enshrined the right to shelter for unhoused individuals and families, but this location was not right for this type of low-barrier shelter, which allows residents to continue to use drugs and alcohol, has no curfew, and has an outdoor smoking area in the courtyard below the school’s windows.

As of the ruling, the city is enjoined from opening or operating a homeless shelter at 320 Pearl, absent the filing of a new Fair Share statement that complies with the law. (I don’t see how this administration is blowing past this.)

“In light of [the Department of Homeless Service’s] description of Safe Haven Shelters as a ‘low barrier program’ and Safe Haven Shelter’s lack of rules ‘against residents using drugs, alcohol or weapons[,]’ petitioner’s contention that the Shelter will likely bring crime, sex offenders, drugs and paraphernalia such as syringes, ‘around the corner on Peck Slip street, which is the open-air playground for P.S. 343 during the school day’ is more than merely speculative, as respondents contend.,” he wrote in his decision.

“There are two, eight-hundred pound gorillas in the room,” Engoron wrote in the ruling. “The first is the fact that the proposal would place a shelter for troubled adults adjacent to a school for three-to-eleven-year-olds. . . The second eight-hundred pound gorilla is the City’s cavalier attitude towards fulfilling its obligation to demonstrate that it seriously considered the siting criteria.”

The city’s own siting criteria require that the facility be compatible with existing facilities and programs in the immediate area. And the city’s Fair Share criteria require that the city consider “all potential negative effects” — social, economic and environmental — on surrounding areas.