NYCHA Tenants Press Demolition Fight Despite Termination Threats—Insist Mamdani Be More Than a ‘Regular Politician’

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani continues to support a privatization and demolition scheme in Chelsea that tenants say will forever destroy public housing for working class people.

By Joe Maniscalco

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By Joe Maniscalco

Working class NYCHA tenants fighting eviction and the ultimate privatization and demolition of their tree-lined communities in Chelsea have a pair of important hearings coming up in the next two months that will go a long way to determining their struggle.

But they insist Mayor Zohran Mamdani could step in today and save their neighborhoods—and the future of public housing nationwide—if Hizzoner was more than “just a regular politician” and really cared about all those marginalized “aunties” he likes to talk so much about.

Mamdani, like his predecessor Eric Adams, is spearheading a scheme to hand over control of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses [FEC] on Manhattan’s west side to Related Companies—the same deep-pocketed developers responsible for the affluent Hudson Yards project located nearby where median monthly rents on 1-bedroom apartments presently far exceed $5,500.

Related, along with its partner Essence Development, are eager to level the existing FEC communities so that they can get busy constructing a series of hi-rise towers containing some 2,500 luxury housing units commanding market rate rents.

All of this—and a 99-year lease, too—in exchange for the construction of 1,000 supposedly affordable housing units that no one in the FEC Houses opposed to the demolition scheme believes will ever truly be affordable, and a 20% equity interest in the deal.

The developers, along with NYCHA execs, have embarked on a months-long campaign to pressure FEC tenants—including the vulnerable senior citizens living in the Chelsea Addition on West 27th Drive—to surrender their Section 9 housing protections and self-evict themselves to other apartments located around the complex.

NYCHA’s Elliott-Chelsea Houses could soon be leveled to make way for a mixed-use complex featuring 2,500 luxury housing units.

“[Mayor Mamdani] showed us with the 9/11 files—revealing them, settling lawsuits, and not going along what other administrations did—the he could do something new,” Elliott-Chelsea Tenants Association President Renee Keitt told Work-Bites on Tuesday. “But he has made a choice—and that choice is to go ahead with the demolition process.”

Attorney Tom Hillgardner is representing four of the six households at the Fulton 11 building who have refused to self-evict, but were recently told their leases would be terminated if they do not move out. He’s also representing 18 of the 24 households refusing to vacate their apartments at the Chelsea Addition, and who contend they have been harassed into leaving.

Hillgardner will argue on behalf of Fulton 11 tenants before NYCHA’s Office of Impartial Hearings early next month, before heading into Housing Court in November to advocate for the Chelsea Addition tenants.

“One of the standards for harassment is that a landlord is not permitted to provide a tenant or occupant with false information about their rights to occupancy,” Hillgardner told Work-Bites this week. “We contend that merely by issuing the 90, 60, and 30-day notices to the tenants asking them to move by October 26, 2025—a date that preceded their obtaining the right for them to do that—was provision of false information. That's alleged with the tenants in Chelsea Addition, and that occurred at Fulton 11 as well.”

Work-Bites reached out to both NYCHA and Mayor’s Office for comment on this story, but neither has responded to requests for comment.

NYCHA spokesperson Matthew Horgan told the City Reporter earlier this week that Fulton 11 tenants “have been offered new apartments in the community but have failed to relocate, which is a breach of the rules in their leases. That is what triggered these notices.”

Elliott-Chelsea Tenants Association President Renee Keitt.

Hillgardner counters that Article 18 of the New York State Constitution prohibits NYCHA from engaging in any business or enterprise other than the business of building and operating low-rent housing for low-income persons.

“Now we see them getting involved in a joint venture with Related Companies and Essence Development to build mixed-income housing on NYCHA property with NYCHA to take a 20% equity interest in the developer of that mixed-income project,” he said. “That’s doing and engaging in business other than the business and operation of building low-rent housing for low-income persons.”

Keitt said she is hopeful that the upcoming legal proceedings will stop the harassment FEC tenants have been subjected to for months, and give demolition opponents more to come up with other solutions to NYCHA’s alleged money woes.

While tenants have long-argued that the $1.2 billion demolition scheme will cost more than simply rehabilitating and repairing the existing FEC buildings, NYCHA contends it needs $78 billion over the next 20 years to fulfill its responsibilities to maintain its housing stock, but cannot do that without entering into a so-called public-private partnership with Related in Chelsea.

“You're not doing it because you care about the tenants,” Keitt added. “You're doing it for the money. That's all it's ever been done for.”

FEC tenants plan to hold an anti-demolition rally outside of NYCHA’s Sept. 23 Board Meeting at 90 Church Street in Manhattan beginning at 11 a.m.