NYCHA Widens the War on Elderly Chelsea Tenants as Judge Backs Residents

Tenants refusing to be pushed out of NYCHA’s Chelsea Addition located at 436 W. 27th Drive are living in an even higher state of anxiety this week after receiving court summonses—they also say their mail has stopped being delivered, too. Photo/Steve Wishnia

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By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City Housing Authority’s scorched earth campaign to get rid of Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea [FEC] tenants refusing to leave their homes on Manhattan’ west side entered an even uglier phase this past week, but a Civil Court Judge’s ruling on Friday is giving residents at least some hope.

After marching on Related Companies’ Hudson Yards offices earlier this month to protest the destruction of their homes, Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea public housing tenants began receiving thick legal summonses telling them, “YOU ARE HEARBY SUMMONED to answer the Complaint in this action…”

Tenants living in the Chealsea Addition—or the FEC’s “senior building” located at 436 W. 27th Drive—were already being actively pressured to leave and even saw their entire apartment directory on the first floor cleared out. Now, the elderly tenants living there—many in their 70s and 80s, say their mail has stopped being delivered, too.

NYCHA has tapped the Chelsea Addition as one of the first two buildings slated for demolition so that the agency and its partners at Related Companies can go ahead with their $2 billion “public-private” scheme to level the existing FEC community and supplant it with a complex of new, mostly market rate luxury towers.

Attorneys previously arguing on behalf of NYCHA in court earlier this month called the demolition plan and privatization model the “best option” for New York City public housing.

FEC tenants call it a land grab and want a binding vote on the project. Community Board 4 already voted down the demolition plan in September.

On Friday, Civil Court Judge Emily Morales-Minerva declined to help NYCHA force two FEC senior citizens out of their apartments to make way for “modern amenities,”—saying in part, “[NYCHA] fails to explain how, if at all, not immediately making said updates to the subject apartment causes irreparable harm.”

“It is a good sign, but we know the battle will get uglier,” FEC tenant advocate Lizette Colón told Work-Bites on Monday.

NYCHA began filing multiple court actions against individual FEC tenants in October as part of a new effort to get them out. The actions filed in New York County Supreme Court seek money damages against the tenants, while also denying them the right-to-cousel afforded to renters in Housing Court.

Tenant advocates last week sent a mass letter to local elected officials and community board leaders asking them to urge NYCHA to reverse course— pull the plug on the Supreme Court filings, pause any new filings, and commit to resolving tenant relocation disputes in Housing Court.

State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, along with representatives from the offices of City Council Member Erik Bottcher and Assembly Member Tony Simone, reportedly met with the leadership of Community Board 4, subsequent to the letter being sent out on Nov. 12 to discuss the issue. 

Work-Bites reached out to State Senator Hoylman-Sigal and Community Board 4 for comment on this story, but did not receive a reply before going to press.

Democratic District Leader Layla Law-Gisiko [AD-75] calls NYCHA’s filings in New York County Supreme Court “absolutely the most atrocious part of this action.”

“I mean, it's disgraceful because they are putting the most vulnerable people in a situation where they are denying them their rights,” she told Work-Bites. “If you're in Housing Court you should have right-to-counsel, and you should be given a lawyer. [NYCHA] is depriving the tenants of that by choosing the jurisdiction where they filed. But furthermore, in the lawsuit that they filed, they're asking for money damages—this is beyond punishing and coercive and appalling. And this is coming from a public housing authority whose mission and mandate is to provide dignified and safe housing for the poorest and the most vulnerable?”

A NYCHA spokesperson contacted for response to this story said the agency does not comment on “active litigation.”