Imagine a bulldozer comes to demolish your home. You plead to stay. But your elected representatives side with profit-hungry real estate developers. They insist you voted for the wrecking ball.
NYCHA’s Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea (FEC) residents are living this nightmare. Despite deep opposition, a controversial proposal to privatize, demolish, and rebuild their homes charges ahead. They’re fighting a two-headed monster: community destruction and the falsehood perpetuated by politicians and private developers that demolition is “resident-led.”
If Related Companies, the $60 billion developer behind Hudson Yards, succeeds, they’ll possess a 99-year lease for incredibly valuable public land in Chelsea. Through NYCHA’s RAD/PACT conversion program, Related and partner Essence Development propose to demolish all 24 FEC buildings, assessed as “structurally sound.”
They promise to replace 2,056 units, segregating 4,500 public housing tenants into six new 39-story high-rises. About 70% of the land will contain 2,400 market-rate and 1,000 “permanently affordable” units, likely costing several thousands judging from a nearby lottery. Construction will last until 2041, perhaps far longer.
One of the first buildings selected for demolition is a senior-only building home to 91 elders who’ve received 90-day vacate notices. The Legal Aid Society warns of “significant harm” and “permanent displacement,” especially for these vulnerable seniors.
Developers and officials claim a tenant majority wants this proposal, invoking a survey that critics argue was misleading and therefore invalid. Mayor Adams defended demolition, saying, “We didn’t force this down anyone’s throat.” Elliott-Chelsea’s tenant association president Renee Keitt countered: “So when everyone says we’ve asked for it; we have not…a survey is not legally binding.”
Pro-demolition Councilman Erik Bottcher told a jeering town hall crowd, “I would never support a plan that I didn’t believe the majority of the tenants supported.” And yet Bottcher and project supporters Congressman Jerry Nadler, Assemblyman Tony Simone, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, and state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, stopped listening to constituents long ago.
It’s not too late to right this precedent-setting wrong. Despite facing a real estate behemoth intent on clawing them out of their homes, tenants are fighting back and fundraising for the Chelsea Public Housing Legal Defense Fund to help desperate seniors stay in their apartments.
They point to lacking transparency in NYCHA’s and Related/ Essence’s 2023 survey which gave residents different construction, renovation, and rezoning options but never mentioned “demolition” or tearing down all buildings. Materials specified five to eight — not 16 — years of projected construction.
Only 29% of residents even participated and 419 submitted surveys selected rehabbing units and 550 chose new construction. It’s unclear tenants fully understood the survey, consequences of non-participation, and that responses equaled a “vote.” Residents vehemently rejected a 2019 plan to demolish two buildings with new infill construction, raising questions about how a majority chose a complete tear-down just years later.
Opponents argue the developer-funded survey distorted reality and collected 949 resident petition signatures against demolition. They cite strong resistance in the election of the Elliott-Chelsea tenant association president opposed to demolition, and City Council primary results for Jackie Lara, a Fulton resident who campaigned against demolition. Lara defeated Bottcher in both districts home to FEC.
The only fair next step is a do-over. Tenants deserve a real vote with a ballot revised for clarity, neutral third-party administration and monitoring. It’s unconscionable to demolish people’s homes given widespread opposition and extensive doubt regarding data accuracy. Jacob Riis tenants learned from this cautionary tale, voting overwhelmingly against privatization.
Manufactured urgency to speed demolition disserves the entire Chelsea community who will suffer health and environmental hazards from noise, dust, pollution, lost green space and 370 mature trees over decades of construction. It sets a dangerous precedent for public housing across the state and country as more authorities seek privatization. NYCHA plans to convert one-third of its housing to PACT.
The old carpenter’s wisdom can remedy this debacle: “Measure twice, cut once.” With people’s lives at stake, not to mention billions with fast-rising project costs, a new vote doesn’t revert us to “square one,” as Simone has incorrectly warned. It ensures that the project the mayor hails as “revolutionary for NYCHA” isn’t built on a rotten foundation.
Real estate super PACs spending millions to elect “anybody but Mamdani” expose the powerful forces trying to buy elections. But we mustn’t let profit-driven companies control this process, nor lack the political courage to correct course. If Related/ Essence, NYCHA, and our elected officials truly believe tenants want demolition, they should give them a new vote. What are they afraid of? Let FEC residents lead the way.
Torres is an assistant professor of sociology at UC San Francisco and author of “At Home in the City: Growing Old in Urban America.”
