FEC Tenants to Council Member Bottcher: Opposition to Demolition Scheme Couldn’t Be Any Clearer
FEC tenants and their supporters opposed to NYCHA’s plan to demolish their homes rally outside Council Member’s Erik Bottcher’s residence on Sept. 13.
By Joe Maniscalco
New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher likes to portray himself as a stalwart advocate for tenants rights, but he’s failing to uphold that image in Chelsea where elderly NYCHA residents continue to be subjected to an ongoing campaign of fear and intimidation that supporters call nothing less than “horrific.”
Council Member Bottcher [D-3rd District] lauded Alvin Bragg earlier this month after the Manhattan District Attorney indicted the owner of a building at 117-119 West 26th Street accused of harassing rent-regulated tenants living there.
“Let this be a message to any landlord who thinks they can intimidate or neglect tenants into leaving: New Yorkers deserve safe, dignified housing, and we will hold bad actors accountable,” Council Member Bottcher wrote in an email to constituents on Oct. 3. Signing off, he further said, “I will always stand with tenants and fight to ensure that every New Yorker has the right to safe, stable, and dignified housing.”
Elderly residents living in the Chelsea Addition at West 27th Drive—one of the first two NYCHA buildings slated for demolition as part of a “public-private” partnership with Related Companies—already have “safe, stable, and dignified housing.” But they are, nevertheless, being pressured to vacate their homes by Oct. 26 so that the blockbuster redevelopment project can move ahead.
“He is not listening to his constituents,” Chelsea resident and tenant advocate Marni Halasa recently told Work-Bites. “He seemed to be pressured enough to listen to his constituents that were against the casino—but when it comes to vulnerable, disabled, and senior tenants—poor people, low-income people, and people of color—he doesn't seem to listen.”
Council Member Bottcher last month helped put the brakes on the multi-billion plan to construct a Caesars Palace casino in Times Square vehemently opposed by Broadway theater owners and producers.
In casting his “no” vote as part of a state-commissioned community advisory committee, Council Member Bottcher said the project had to meet a “particularly high bar” for community support that simply had not “materialized.”
Tenants of NYCHA’s Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses [FEC] located on West Side who are now being threatened with the demolition of their homes so that private developers can erect a new complex of mostly market rate luxury housing over the next two decades—insist there is a “high bar” for community approval for that plan as well that has clearly not “materialized.”
Quite the opposition, in fact. They insist community-wide opposition to the demolition plan couldn’t be any clearer.
They have compiled a petition with the names of well over 900 FEC residents who are resolutely opposed to the demolition plan. Community Board 4 also voted down the project last month after experiencing sustained and vocal opposition to the demolition plan from local residents.
Work-Bites has made repeated attempts to reach Council Member Bottcher for his views on the FEC demolition plan, but those attempts have all been unsuccessful.
FEC tenants fighting back against ongoing efforts to force them out of their homes have made their opposition to the demolition plan loud and clear to the council member—even forcing a sit-down meeting after bumping into him outside a 9th Avenue deli a couple of weeks ago.
“Few elected officials have been more vocal than Erik about the affordable housing crisis that poses an existential threat to New York City,” Council Member Bottcher’s New York City Council website declares. “With the lowest rental apartment vacancy rate since 1968 and the highest levels of homelessness since the Great Depression, Erik believes that an abundance of housing is needed to bring down housing costs. He has worked with his local community boards to create a pipeline of thousands of affordable housing units in Council District 3.”
FEC tenants have already taken to the streets and rallied outside the council member’s W. 24th Street residence and W. 30th Street office. They plan to march on the offices of Related Companies at 30 Hudson Yards [10th Ave. & 33rd St.] on Friday, October. 24. Those interested in participating can find further information here.
Chelsea residents also plan to pack the court at 71 Thomas Street on Thursday, Oct. 15 starting at 2 p.m. for an Article 78 proceeding that could, depending on the outcome, slow the march towards demolition.
“Basically we're asserting that this [plan] has to go through ULURP [Uniform Land Use Review Procedure], or else the developer and NYCHA are essentially breaking the city's own law,” Halasa added. “That's like the thrust of it—but the other thrust is that that Section 9—the deeply affordable federal funding—should also be saved as well, and those tenants deserve protections in perpetuity.”
Halasa says the pressure to vacate NYCHA is putting on FEC tenants—especially the elderly— is “horrific.”
“People have no idea the harassment and stress—and just the disrespect low-income and vulnerable, senior, disabled people of color go through,” she said. “This is going on right now, they’re preying on seniors. New York City should’t be this way.”