Faith groups hit red tape over anti-terror bollards

Religious institutions that have won federal grants to install anti-terrorism bollards are hitting a roadblock of another kind — bureaucracy.

Houses of worship and religious schools that have won Homeland Security Department grants to install bollards — which can help stop ramming attacks by cars and trucks, like the one on Hudson River bike path in 2017 — are finding it difficult to actually put them in place thanks to the red tape from the city, the Daily News has learned.

Councilman Chaim Deutsch (D-Brooklyn) said he's convening a meeting Thursday of about 100 such institutions of various religious faiths and a slew of city agencies to hash out what's the holdup.

“We need to streamline this process, and we need to make sure that these institutions that receive Homeland Security funding, that those bollards come in,” Deutsch said.

He said he realized the problem after getting a call a few weeks ago from an organization that couldn't make progress getting a bollard installed.

“So I started calling other schools that received this Homeland Security grant — no one knows what to do with it,” he said.

David Pollock, the direct of public policy and security at the Jewish Community Relations Council, said organizations looking to install bollards need to get a franchise to put them on city property.

“It takes a lot of expertise to navigate the bureaucracy, and a lot of stubbornness to make it work,” he said.