Concerned public housing tenants are sounding off on a controversial, city-backed plan to tear down up to 18 buildings in Chelsea to make way for new residences — with several telling top officials they oppose the proposal during a public hearing on Wednesday.
At the forum on major changes to the New York City Housing Authority’s annual plan, agency administrators and board members heard criticism from several tenants across the Fulton and Chelsea-Elliott Houses, which could face the wrecking ball under a plan put forth by private developers selected to manage the properties.
Jackie Lara, a Fulton Houses resident who has lived in her apartment with five family members since 2002, said she thinks the plan could lead to displacement, as has been the case in the wake of public housing teardowns throughout the country.
“They’re hurting my family and they’re hurting a whole bunch of families,” Lara said. “I hope we’ll come into an agreement and there’s no demolition and that [they] fix our developments.”
But NYCHA and the developers, Related Companies and the firm Essence, have tried to quell displacement concerns, saying tenants will retain their lease rights, continue to pay 30% of their income toward rent and get units in new buildings. Around 100 households, or about 6% of tenants, would be forced to move during the rebuilding process.
Related and Essence say they’re revisiting a previously rejected proposal to tear down the buildings because the initial plan to repair the Chelsea-Elliott and Fulton Houses would be more expensive than demolishing the complexes.
Wednesday’s demonstrations and testimonies come after tenants gathered to protest on the campus last month, and mark the latest front in a battle over the future of the cash-strapped public housing agency.
The hearing in Lower Manhattan took place at the same time as NYCHA and Essence presented their plan to Manhattan Community Board 4, which represents the public housing developments and would weigh in on any land use changes.
Jonathan Gouveia, the vice president of NYCHA Real Estate Development, told the board that cost estimates for renovating the existing structure spiked as they uncovered “corroded plumbing, deteriorating gas lines, electrical infrastructure that was extraordinarily outdated, and single-cab elevators that were really non-functioning.”
“The idea of a tenant-in-place rehab becomes more challenging” and would prompt the need to relocate tenants, he added.
Under the proposal, which would take at least six years, Related and Essence would move residents out of the public housing complex and erect new buildings for those residents alongside hundreds of brand new luxury apartments and some income-restricted units.
The firms worked with resident leaders and NYCHA on a roughly three-month tenant engagement process that culminated with a nonbinding survey on whether to move ahead with demolition planning last month.
A majority of the roughly 950 participants said they supported the teardown option, according to results of the poll released late last month.
The plan now has the support of Mayor Eric Adams and NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt.
“No one knows better than the residents what they and their neighbors need, and they were smart to recognize the potential benefits of completely rebuilding their campus,” Adams said in a statement last month.
But several tenants who rallied ahead of the hearing and spoke out during the session said they felt excluded or steamrolled in a process that involved only a fraction of the 2,055 households across the campuses.
Alexa Cruz, a retiree who has lived in the Chelsea-Elliott Houses since 1969, said the protocol was skewed in favor of the teardown option.
“That’s what they wanted,” Cruz said.
“Destroying buildings is a solution that only benefits the developers,” added her neighbor Celines Miranda.
Rising costs, stunning gaps
On Wednesday, NYCHA released a stunning financial assessment that revealed the need for $78.3 billion in repairs and renovations — a dramatic increase from an estimated $45 billion just five years ago that the agency mostly attributed to rising prices.
One focus of NYCHA’s financial recovery plan is a switch to private management at complexes that account for tens of thousands of households, including the Chelsea-Elliott and Fulton Houses. The program, known as Permanent Affordability Commitment Together, or PACT, installs a private company to handle property management and switches the source of federal funding for each unit, a change that NYCHA says unlocks more funding and private investment.
Following a 16-month community planning process, tenants at the two complexes selected Related and Essence to take over management of the buildings and repair them under PACT, but resoundingly rejected a proposal to demolish them.
The process was hailed for its democratic approach and careful planning, which ended with an agreement that no demolition would occur.
But earlier this year, the developers determined that destroying the buildings could actually be cheaper than gut renovations, releasing broad figures putting the total cost at up to $1.5 billion, roughly four times an initial estimate. In March, they once again raised the idea of demolition, prompting the latest engagement process.
Lara and other tenants, along with activists at the hearing, called the process rushed and opaque in comparison to the deliberate task force, with residents kept in the dark about the extent of the expected work.
“I was in the working group and the conclusion was no demolition,” Lara said. “All of a sudden now, behind our backs, they made deals or whatever and now they want to demolish all the buildings.”
The recent agency-backed survey was open to anyone 18 and older named on a lease at the Chelsea complexes, which are home to roughly 4,500 authorized tenants. Residents were presented with three options: rebuild within existing land use restrictions that limit height and usage, rebuild and pursue a rezoning to clear the way for bigger buildings and a range of uses, or renovate the current buildings.
Most of the participants picked a rebuild option.
Opponents of demolition and the engagement process said the vote was not so straightforward, and that key details remained under wraps. They pointed to a presentation circulated among tenants that showed how buildings would be “decanted” in phases — an obscure term that masked the word demolished.
In a joint statement ahead of the hearing, the Legal Aid Society and Community Service Society criticized a lack of transparency from the large real estate firms that could gain the right to erect new luxury housing on some of the nation’s most valuable real estate as part of the teardown and rebuild plan.
“Claims that the proposal is ‘tenant-led’ are misleading,” they added, citing the omission of critical details about relocation and an uneven survey distribution.
“This plan is unequivocally not resident-led, and is guaranteed to uproot the lives of thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers, many of whom have resided in the FEC community for generations,” said Legal Aid staff attorney Lucy Newman.
She said that her organization would oppose any teardown proposal unless NYCHA and the developers “can guarantee that no residents will be permanently displaced as a result of their plans.”
But Chelsea-Elliott Tenant Association President Miguel Acevedo and Fulton Tenant Association President Darlene Waters, who support the plan and played a key role in distributing information and informing residents, fired back at the assessment. They issued a statement of their own ahead of the hearing condemning the stance from “outside groups.”
“Let’s be clear: the claims made by these organizations are outright lies made by people who have never set foot in our buildings in order to advance their own political agendas,” the two leaders said. “The tenants we represent overwhelmingly chose new construction at Fulton-Chelsea Houses because we deserve new, safe, healthy homes. Anyone who says otherwise stands against the tenants, tenant leadership and the elected officials who represent our complex.”
A dramatic change for NYC public housing
Still, the proposal marks a major break from how New York City has addressed problems in its public housing system, even as teardowns have become commonplace nationwide amid a decadeslong political retreat from the concept of government-owned housing.
In places like New Orleans and Chicago, the demolition of public housing forced families to search for homes on the private market amid a severe affordable apartment shortage that left many scrambling for homes.
The city’s largest previous demolition plan, which took place at a complex in Brownsville, scattered longtime residents throughout the five boroughs and was marred by more than a decade of dysfunction and false starts.
NYCHA and the developers say this plan is far different, and that the majority of residents will only move when the new buildings are complete, unless they choose to relocate earlier.
NYCHA spokesperson Michael Horgan said the agency and the developers “are committed to minimizing disruption to residents, preserving resident rights and protections, and clearly communicating all processes that could affect residents.”
But tenants who spoke with Gothamist said they worried that whatever happened could set a precedent for the entire system.
“It definitely concerns me because I’ve heard that this plan has been in effect in Chicago and other folks have been displaced,” said Destiny Mata, a photography instructor who lives in Manhattan’s Lillian Wald Houses. “So it actually scares me because it could happen to my home or set the tone for the rest of, not just New York City, but for the nation.”
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