[The 4,500 tenants at New York Citys Housing Authoritys Fulton and
Chelsea-Elliott Houses face the recent announcement that their
buildings will be demolished and rebuilt by The Related Companies and
Essence Realty.]
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NYCHA RESIDENTS IN CHELSEA RESIST DEMOLITION PLAN THAT COULD DISPLACE
THEM  
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Elsie Carson-Holt
August 7, 2023
Indypendent
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_ The 4,500 tenants at New York City's Housing Authority's Fulton and
Chelsea-Elliott Houses face the recent announcement that their
buildings will be demolished and rebuilt by The Related Companies and
Essence Realty. _

The Chelsea-Elliott Houses were built after World War II. They are
located between W. 25th and W. 27th Streets from 9th to 10th Ave and
house more than 2,400 NYCHA residents, (Photo: Owen Schacht)

 

Jackie Lara describes coming to the Fulton Houses as “her best
Christmas present.” She and her children moved out of a shelter into
Fulton Houses, a public-housing development in Manhattan’s Chelsea
neighborhood, just after New Years Eve in 2002. 

“My application [for public housing] came in after a year and a half
of being in the shelter,” Lara says. “And I remember when they
called me to come and see this apartment. I planted my seed here. This
is my home.” 

Celines Mirandas is of the same mind. Her family has lived in the
Chelsea-Elliott complex, about half a mile away, since 1975. “My
mother  is at an age where she gets disoriented a lot. And she
doesn’t know which direction to go … but when she’s in her
neighborhood, she knows where she’s at. She knows it’s our
home.” 

Lara and Mirandas, along with the about 4,500 other tenants who live
in the Fulton and Chelsea-Elliott Houses, have witnessed the rapid
gentrification of their neighborhood over the past two decades. The
tenants are now experiencing an even larger change: the recent
announcement by New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) that their
buildings will be demolished and rebuilt by The Related Companies and
Essence Realty. The mega-project would bring in 2,500 market-rate
apartments plus commercial spaces, and the first time mixed-income
buildings would be built on NYCHA land.

_Jackie Lara_

_Celines Mirandas_
PHOTOS: OWEN SCHACHT

Origins of a Plan

In 2019, NYCHA initiated plans to privatize and demolish the Fulton
­Houses. The de Blasio administration began working with private
­developers to raze and rebuild two of the smallest buildings at
Fulton Houses, using the program Rental Assistance Demonstration
(RAD), which leases NYCHA land to private developers who would make
70% of the new apartments market rate, and 30% affordable housing. The
money would allegedly then be used to finance repairs for the rest of
Fulton ­Houses. 

That plan, however, was opposed by tenants, who rejected the
­proposal to tear down two buildings, and instead chose private
managers to oversee the renovation. Lara was in the working group of
15 tenants that in 2019 decided against the demolition plan, and has
been fighting to stop the demolition ever since. She explained that
“as soon as I found out about the demolition [in 2019] I started
just looking for people that would help me protest. … And we stopped
the demolition for 2019. We went to Community Board 4. We
protested.” 

As she walks through Chelsea, Mirandas points out the different
buildings bordering the NYCHA developments owned by The Related
Companies, one of the biggest developers in New York City. Related was
also the driving force behind the nearby Hudson Yards luxury
development, which opened in 2019 and has received nearly $6 billion
in tax breaks and government assistance. The Hudson Yards buildings
still sit half-empty.

In early 2023, Related and Essence announced their demolition plans.
In a survey distributed in the spring, NYCHA offered residents three
options for the future of their homes: new construction with rezoning,
new construction without rezoning, or rehabilitation of existing
units. The survey did not mention demolition, only new construction,
and did not mention the construction of market-rate units on NYCHA
land. It also omitted information about temporary relocation. It has
been criticized by the Legal Aid Society and Community Services
Society, who oppose the demolition on the grounds that it may cause
displacement and ­disagree with the claims that the process has been
resident-led. 

“We’ve spoken to residents who never saw the survey. The
presentation that the survey was based on was misleading.” Alex
MaxDougall, a lawyer for Legal Aid Society told _The
Indypendent._ “It didn’t say anything about demolition, didn’t
say anything about temporary relocation. It didn’t say anything
about the development of 2,500 market-rate apartments.”

MacDougall also pointed out that “Related could never have this land
without a public-housing deal. And they’ve been circling this area
for a long time.” 

According to the anti-demolition group Save Section 9, only 30% of
households voted at all in the survey. Among the 30%, 60% voted for
“new construction with rezoning for taller buildings in less
time.” 

When _The Indy_ asked Fulton Houses Tenant Association President
Miguel Acevedos about the low turnout, he responded that “the voter
turnout on the last mayoral election was 20%. The voter turnout in the
last primary that took place in June was 4%. So voting is a problem
­nationwide.” 

A Swiftly-changing Neighborhood

Starting with an influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-19th century,
the west end of Chelsea became an industrial zone, with piers jutting
into the Hudson River, warehouses and factories, as well as
lumberyards, breweries and tenements to house the workers. The east
end of Chelsea became a center of American theater. It was also home
to the early motion picture industry and to Tin Pan Alley, where much
of the popular music of the 1910s and ‘20s was produced. It was a
far cry from the expensive retail stores, upscale restaurants and
tourist draws like the Highline and Chelsea Market that the area is
known for now. 

George Weaver, who has lived in Fulton House since 1993, has seen
Chelsea’s transformation first hand. “We used to have a lot of
mom-and-pop stores in the neighborhood,” he said. “They’re no
longer in existence.” 

He feels as if he is “absolutely being priced out” of Chelsea,
something Lara agrees with. “Chelsea has made it clear they
absolutely don’t want us here,” she said.

Weaver, who has a degree in business administration and is pursuing a
second degree in public administration, feels like the NYCHA houses 
are mischaracterized. “A misnomer is that tenants here are not
upwardly mobile. A lot of them are college educated. … Some of them
are teachers. Some of them are social workers. They live here. And
they’ve grown up here. And so why should they have to go anywhere
else?” 

The Fulton and Chelsea-Elliott demolition would only be the third
public housing teardown in NYCHA history. Every anti-demolition tenant
and housing advocate ­_The Indy_ spoke to cited fear of displacement
as their primary concern regarding the ­Chelsea-Elliott and Fulton
tear downs. Their fears are not unfounded. 

When NYCHA tore down Prospect ­Plaza, a public-housing project in
Brooklyn in the early 2000s, more than 1,000  families were
displaced. The same is true for Cabrini Green in Chicago, where more
than 80% of public-housing residents never ­returned after its
demolition. In New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the City moved to
­demolish its remaining public housing. Many residents were forced
out of the city, into the suburbs and beyond. 

NYCHA, Related and Essence insist that mass displacement will not
occur. They say that residents will retain lease rights and pay a
maximum of 30% of their income ­toward rent in their new buildings.
They estimate that about 6% of tenants, roughly 100 households, will
have to move during the rebuilding process. Still, residents are wary.
George Weaver said that his biggest fears if demolition goes through
are “homelessness and displacement. I mean, people will die.” 

The Dilemma

Most residents want repairs. And after ­decades of disinvestment in
public housing by the federal government, some do want ­demolition. 

“I’m disabled and elderly, and I am for the demolition. I want a
new apartment,” says Susan Kenney, a resident of Chelsea-Elliott
Housing. She cites various repairs NYCHA has failed to keep up with
and is confident that she will not be displaced. “The elevators
break down. There’s homeless in the ­building. The door is broken,
no intercom system. And we got a lot of drugs in the building.” 

“The last thing anybody wants to do is demolition,” says Acevedos.
“But the reason for demolition is to create new buildings that
won’t deteriorate in the next 10 years.”

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine also supports the demolition
plan. When _The Indy_ asked him if he felt confident that the
project would not lead to displacement, he hedged. 

“We need to ask more questions about it,” said Levine. “The way
it’s been explained so far — and again, we got to ask tough
questions — is that they would first build new homes before any
building would be demolished. And so that’s a much better model,
because you’re not displaced all over New York City.” 

When asked about the Legal Aid Society and Community Service
Society’s criticism of the plan as not being resident-led, the
borough president said he has been in touch with the leadership of
Legal Aid Society, and praised them for asking “great questions”
about the proposal. 

Would people be allowed to remain on the NYCHA campus during the
construction process? Would they be able to keep apartments big enough
for their current family size? What will the income targets be for
newly built affordable housing? These were more “great questions,”
Levine said. “We need to get answers,” he added. 

Determined to Stay

Both Lara and Mirandas say they will miss their homes and the feeling
of community if the demolition goes through. “It won’t be home,”
said Mirandas. “My biggest fear is my mother and how many elderly
like her are going to be lost within their own community.” 

“I want to stay with the residents in my building, Lara added. “We
know each ­other. … They’ve seen my kids grow up.”

 Alex MacDougall says advocates of the demolition and reconstruction
view the plan as “exciting” for the future of affordable housing
for New York City, something that “should raise every alarm bell it
possibly can.”

“We want to elevate the concerns that residents have shared with us:
the displacement of elderly people, the gentrification of their
communities, the 2,500 market rate units filled with people paying
$8,000 a month for a two bedroom … [and] what that will mean for the
community,” MacDougall told _The Indy_.

“I think what they want is to make New York a city of the rich and
get rid of the poor and working class,” Weaver said. 

Lara and Mirandas have created ­petitions, worked with organizers,
and planned protests and rallies. They say they won’t give up. 

 “We have to fight back. Listen, I will fight till I bleed,” Lara
said.

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* public housing
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* New York City
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* gentrification
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