Wrecking Ball Stalled in Chelsea; ‘We Will Win Again,’ Public Housing Tenants Declare

A five-judge panel of the state Appellate Division has barred NYCHA from “taking any action in furtherance of its plan to convert, dispose of, demolish, and redevelop the Chelsea Developments public housing” until a hearing scheduled for May 19.

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By Steve Wishnia

A five-judge panel of the state Appellate Division has extended a temporary restraining order stopping the New York City Housing Authority from proceeding with its plan to demolish and privatize two Chelsea public-housing developments for at least seven weeks.

The ruling, issued March 26, bars NYCHA from “taking any action in furtherance of its plan to convert, dispose of, demolish, and redevelop the Chelsea Developments public housing” until a hearing scheduled for May 19.

“The wrecking ball is stalled,” City Council candidate Layla Law-Gisiko told a rally of about 25 people behind the Chelsea Addition senior-housing building at 436 West 27th Drive, one of the first two buildings slated to be demolished under the NYCHA plan.

The ruling came in Duane v. NYCHA, a lawsuit filed by former state Senator Thomas Duane and a group of residents of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses and the surrounding neighborhood. It’s one of two pending suits seeking to stop the plan to turn the buildings over to the Related Companies, which would then gradually demolish more than 2,000 apartments and replace them with a mix of luxury housing, “affordable” housing, and Section 8 apartments for the developments’ current residents.

The legal machinations are complicated, explains Visnja Vujica, one of the lawyers representing the Elliott-Chelsea Houses Resident Association and Fulton-Elliott-Chelsea Tenants Against Demolition in a separate suit.

In both cases, State Supreme Court Judge David B. Cohen refused to grant a preliminary injunction halting the NYCHA plan. In the Duane suit, he held that the plaintiffs were not likely to win on the merits because they had filed too late, on Dec. 22. “Article 78” lawsuits challenging a state or local government’s action must be filed within four months of that action, and NYCHA’s lawyers said it had approved the plan on July 28. They called the suit a “last-minute Hail Mary not grounded in sound advocacy or genuine urgency but rather in gamesmanship.”

But the lawyers in the Duane suit obtained minutes of a NYCHA board meeting from Sept. 18, in which it approved plans to privatize Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea, along with Campos Plaza on the Lower East Side, Bay View in Canarsie, and the Wilson Houses in East Harlem. That would mean the Duane suit had been filed before the four-month deadline.

The Appellate Division ruling continues the temporary restraining order until May 19, when it will hold hearings on whether to grant a preliminary injunction halting the conversion, in both Duane’s and the resident groups’ lawsuits. If granted, that would extend the ban on NYCHA proceeding with the conversion until Judge Cohen rules on the actual merits of the tenants’ challenge.

City Council candidate Layla Law-Gisiko rallies with public housing tenants in Chelsea this week after a state Appellate court extended a temporary restraining order blocking NYCHA from demolishing the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses. Photo/Steve Wishnia

The Duane suit argues that demolishing the two developments is illegal because NYCHA did not go through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) for major construction projects, which requires holding public hearings and getting final approval from the City Council. It also argues that it’s illegal to privatize the Chelsea Houses because state law mandates that it must be NYCHA-owned nonprofit low-income housing.

NYCHA has argued that it can’t afford to make the major repairs needed to public housing on its own budget, but private landlords can because they will receive more money from federal Section 8 rent subsidies. While NYCHA has already turned about 15% of its 180,000 apartments over to private owners, Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea would be the first developments in the conversion program that would be demolished. At a hearing in January, its lawyers claimed that the demolition was not required to go through ULURP because it was not a “project,” as it would replace the demolished units.

In any case, Vujica says, the current temporary restraining order means that NYCHA can’t go forward with closing the deal with Related, “or even require tenants to have people relocate or sign Section 8 leases to prepare for the conversion.”

“We win. We’re waiting for May 19. We will win again,” Chelsea Addition resident Yu Story, 80, told the rally. “We are people… we are the hero.”

“We can’t sleep at night because we don’t know what will happen,” she added. “Now we sleep.”

Residents of Chelsea Addition and the Fulton 11 building at 401-419 West 19th St. would have to move twice under the NYCHA plan, first into vacant apartments in the developments for a few years, until the first Section 8 building is completed. In late October, NYCHA sued 19 residents of the two buildings, including Story, demanding that they relocate to temporary apartments. It withdrew the cases in December, after Judge Cohen denied a preliminary injunction.

Story, whose first language is Chinese, said she moved into Chelsea Addition five years ago, after seven years in another public-housing development. “Over there, my floor had a gunfight,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to move into senior housing. People help you.”

“We need better, but not destroying our buildings, said Candida Montero, who’s lived in Elliott-Chelsea for 30 years, since she was a child.