Opinion: The David vs. Goliath Battle Over Public Land in Chelsea

“Anyone concerned about the unchecked power of private companies to orchestrate sweeping change in our communities should pay close attention.”

A David versus Goliath battle is currently raging over extremely valuable public land in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. While the outcome will affect thousands of local residents, it has huge implications for public housing across New York City and the country. Anyone concerned about the unchecked power of private companies to orchestrate sweeping change in our communities should pay close attention. This cautionary tale offers myriad lessons to ensure proper safeguards and fair participation of all key stakeholders when such opportunities, or attempted land grabs, depending on your perspective, emerge in the future.

The Goliath in this saga is Related Companies, the firm that developed ultra-luxury Hudson Yards—the largest private real estate project in United States history. Valued at over $60 billion dollars, Related has a spotty record of fulfilling community promises, having recently withdrawn a casino proposal after heated opposition and delivering far fewer housing units than promised when Hudson Yards received approval in 2009. Our Davids are the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea (FEC) public housing tenants fighting Related’s planned demolition of their homes.

With its partner Essence Development, Related proposes to demolish all of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings in Chelsea, with 2,056 total units housing 4,500 tenants across two campuses spanning 9th and 10th avenues, between 16th and 27th streets. Public housing residents will be segregated into three new 39-story high-rises on each campus. An additional 2,400 market-rate and 1,000 “permanently affordable” units will be built on the other 70 percent of the land.

A lottery for new affordable housing nearby previews how expensive those “permanently affordable” apartments may be, with some one-bedrooms listed for $3,689 and two-bedrooms $4,415 per month, highlighting the deep chasm between so-called affordable housing and the rentals many low-income residents desperately need. Construction is projected to last 16 years minimum, with earliest completion in 2041, but could stretch up to 30.

Despite the project’s fast-rising construction costs, now a staggering $1.9 billion, developers and elected officials have charged ahead with the controversial plan, touting it as the future of public housing. While everyone agrees on the shameful decades of deferred maintenance and Congressional disinvestment in public housing, arguments and counter-arguments have flown back and forth about the necessity of a complete tear-down, only the third in NYCHA history, versus renovating existing units. Proponents such as Mayor Eric Adams claim the buildings are “beyond repair,” while critics dispute the blight narrative as a ploy to execute a “land grab,” pointing to developers’ and NYCHA’s assessments of the FEC buildings as “structurally sound.”

The proposal transitions complexes to Section 8 funding, a subsidy voucher program for private rentals, under the relatively recent Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program, or PACT, which allows NYCHA to lease public housing to private developers for 99 years and transfer management to private companies. While PACT has facilitated building upgrades and repairs, a lengthy Human Rights Watch report documents how privatization has reduced tenants’ protections against eviction and ensured less oversight and recourse to seek redress.

PACT tenants also reported feeling pressured to sign leases they didn’t fully understand. A recent Comptroller’s Office audit finds that evictions in PACT developments have “significantly increased,” with rates almost five times as high as other NYCHA properties, and that PACT property managers pursue evictions at significantly higher rates than NYCHA and private landlords. Ultimately NYCHA plans to convert one-third of its housing to PACT.

Instead, FEC tenants are calling on NYCHA and elected officials to repair and preserve their existing homes under current Section 9 funding, allocated by the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, which established a federal funding system for public housing. Milagros Lugo, 48, a lifelong Chelsea resident who’s lived in Elliott-Chelsea nearly 40 years, is fighting demolition and lamented: “They’re erasing community. You could build brand new buildings anywhere. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

But as women in our 40s born into this neighborhood, from poor and working-class backgrounds, we understand that while tearing down a 78-year-old community may not make moral sense, Chelsea is no longer just “anywhere.” The industrial Chelsea of our girlhood has become an international tourist destination renowned for its art galleries and High Line Park, home to affluent residents who can pay median market-rate monthly rents ranging from $5,858 to $7,500 for one- and two-bedroom apartments. Our residence in deeply affordable housing complexes is the only reason that we and our longtime neighbors can afford to stay here.

With the joint record of decision signed by NYCHA and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), residents of two buildings slated for demolition this fall have received their 90-day vacate notices. One building, Chelsea Addition, houses 91 older adults who must move first and twice, subjecting them to considerable distress and disruption in their final years. Apparently, Related/ Essence would rather risk the terrible optics of forcing disabled elder residents to vacate amid much opposition and confusion, with no plan to replace their desirable senior-only NYCHA housing, in order to swiftly relocate tenants perhaps perceived as more pliable given their vulnerability.

Chelsea Addition resident Aleksandra Jargilo, 76, shared, “I’m scared.” But fear hasn’t weakened her and many of her neighbors’ resolve to stay. Like many NYCHA residents, Aleksandra has a history of prior displacement, arriving in the U.S. in 1982 as a Polish refugee: “I escaped communist Poland.” Beating her chest, she shouted, “And I’m not moving.”

The Legal Aid Society has warned the proposal will cause significant harm and could lead to “permanent displacement,” especially of seniors relocated in advance of the demolition. Staff attorney Lucy Newman said, “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.”

Who will protect tenants and ensure their voice is heard? So far, many feel frustrated, ignored, and unsupported by their elected representatives. At a recent Town Hall, the district’s Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who supports the project, told a booing crowd, “I would never support a plan that I didn’t believe the majority of the tenants supported.” And yet Bottcher and other elected leaders who favor the plan, including Congressman Jerry Nadler, District 75 Assemblymember Tony Simone, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, and Mayor Eric Adams, have taken no steps to reassess the proposal based on constituents’ concerns.

But in a recent full board meeting, Manhattan Community Board 4 has taken a stand against the current demolition proposal. They have voted to approve a letter which states that the board does not support the NYCHA plan’s current plan alternatives and calls for a vote on each campus monitored by a third party, neutral organization to arrive at consensus on how to proceed with redevelopment, among other guidance outlined to govern a new path forward.

Residents fighting demolition reject the drumbeat from politicians and private real estate developers claiming the process is “resident-led” and argue the developer-funded survey produced an inaccurate picture of tenant preferences, pushing back against the collective gaslighting that they have chosen the wrecking ball. They identify a deliberate lack of transparency in a 2023 survey distributed by NYCHA and Related/Essence as misleading residents.

The survey asked FEC residents to choose among different construction, renovation, and rezoning options but never once mentioned “demolition” or a complete tear-down to make way for new construction. Materials only mentioned five to eight years of construction, not the 16-year timeline for project completion. Finally, the survey didn’t offer tenants the choice to keep their Section 9 housing. Only 29 percent of residents participated. Of 969 surveys submitted, 419 selected renovating existing units and the other 550 chose new construction.

It’s unclear whether tenants fully understood the survey or the consequences of not participating and that responses counted as a “vote,” rather than administrative information gathering. Residents rejected a 2019 plan to demolish just two buildings with new infill construction, begging the question of how a majority could swing towards a complete tear-down only a few years later.

Plan opponents collected at least 949 signatures for their own petition against demolition. They cite evidence of strong anti-demolition support in the election of Elliott-Chelsea tenant association president Renee Keitt, who opposes demolition, and outcome of the City Council primary for Jackie Lara, another community leader and Fulton resident who ran on an anti-demolition platform. Lara defeated incumbent Erik Bottcher in the two election districts home to the FEC campuses. Of her decisive wins, she said, “These numbers send a crystal-clear message. The people most impacted by the plan—NYCHA tenants—do not want their homes demolished, their land privatized, or luxury towers built on public housing campuses. And the broader Chelsea community stands with them.”

Given deep discontent with the current plan and unresolved questions about the 2023 survey’s validity, a new and fair vote with a questionnaire revised for clarity, carried out by an independent third-party, is a reasonable and necessary safeguard to ensure that the demolition and rebuild reflects the will of tenants.

The future of several thousand residents hinges on the difference of 131 survey responses that ultimately amounted to a crucial vote after the fact. Fabricated urgency to rush demolition not only harms public housing residents on the front lines but their surrounding neighbors who will also endure the health and environmental hazards from noise, dust, pollution, and the loss of green space and 370 mature trees over decades of construction.

The significance of Chelsea’s land battle transcends one neighborhood. It’s a chilling case study in how a private real estate developer could upend housing rights and community self-determination for generations to come, in New York City and across America.

Time’s running out for residents who continue the fight to preserve their homes. “It’s not a done deal,” urges Milagros, who drags out a large banner to community meetings and public hearings to raise awareness and rally her neighbors. She humbly admits sometimes lacking the facility to reel off smooth speaking points, letting her banner speak for her and her community: “Save Our Homes/ NO DEMOLITION/ Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses.”

They face steep odds against a powerful real estate company with every resource at its disposal to move them out of the way. But they persist—leafleting, protesting, testifying at hearings, asking hard questions no one wants to answer, and fundraising for the Chelsea Public Housing Defense Fund to assist senior neighbors facing the bulldozers first.

No matter the outcome, FEC tenants and their neighbors deserve accountability and to have their concerns addressed, with full disclosure of the financials behind oft-repeated claims that the only way to save their homes is to destroy them.

If a land grab can happen here, it can happen anywhere in America. But so can a miracle, if those in power have the political courage to slow down and correct course if necessary, before tearing a gaping hole through the heart of Manhattan and some of the last large-tract, deeply affordable housing left in New York City.

Stacy Torres is an assistant professor of sociology at UC San Francisco and author of At Home in the City: Growing Old in Urban America.