NYCHA Offers New Carrot to 24 Seniors Blocking $1.2 Billion Manhattan Project

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The city housing authority offered a new concession to 24 elderly tenants who are holding up a contentious $1.2 billion plan to raze and rebuild several dilapidated Manhattan public housing developments, giving the holdouts the option of transferring to senior housing similar to their current home.

Two-dozen residents at Chelsea Addition, ranging in age from their late 60s to mid-90s, have balked at a plan that would force them to move out for three years and return when the new building is expected to be complete. They say they’re not going anywhere.

The housing authority’s signature plan — backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — involves demolishing 18 NYCHA buildings in the Fulton, Elliott and Chelsea Houses and Chelsea Addition, and replacing them with six new towers for the residents of those developments, while erecting nine additional buildings that would include 2,500 market rate apartments and 900 affordable units.

The entire project is now on pause while an appeals court considers litigation to pull the plug. The housing authority’s new offer to find Chelsea Addition residents seniors-only housing — after first insisting they move to non-senior public housing — emerged in court papers filed late Friday.

Last month state Appellate Division judges temporarily barred the New York City Housing Authority from “taking any action in furtherance of its plan to convert, dispose of, demolish, and redevelop the Chelsea Developments.”

The authority’s lawyers called that language “too broad” and say it forced a halt to all activity related to the project. Management asked the court to let them continue working on the underlying financials of the project, and continue working with tenants on relocation plans while the appeals court considers the litigation.

Late Monday the appeals court judges denied NYCHA’s motion to modify the temporary restraining order.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of former state Sen. Tom Duane and several tenants, alleges that the project violates federal housing law and was pushed through without the usual engagement with the community board, city council and the planning commission that most major developments require. A decision on that question may not come for months.

“These transfers would allow these residents to move into senior-only (public) housing in another NYCHA development during the construction of the replacement buildings and they would then have the option to remain in their new unit permanently, thereby avoiding the need to relocate twice,” the housing authority argued.

In an affidavit, NYCHA Vice President for Real Estate Jonathan Gouveia claimed 11 seniors at Chelsea Addition had “expressed interest” in transferring to other seniors-only developments.

Yu Zhen Story, a 79-year-old Chelsea Addition tenant who is refusing to relocate, says that on March 27 — two days after THE CITY reported on the situation at Chelsea Addition and one day after the Appellate Division issued its order temporarily halting the project — NYCHA sent her a letter offering a transfer to a seniors-only development on the Lower East Side.

“I never expressed interest in transferring, nor did I ever request that my name be put on a waiting list,” she said in an affidavit filed Sunday.

The housing authority’s Gouveia also said that “under NYCHA’s conservative reading of the Court’s very broadly worded Temporary Restraining Order, NYCHA has ceased all engagement with residents regarding the transfer and relocation process.”

Noting the letter Story received, John Low-Beer, an attorney representing Duane and the tenants, called Gouveia’s statement “false,” and said , “Without permission from the court, NYCHA has already been doing the very thing it now asks the court to permit — contacting the elderly residents of Chelsea Addition...to offer them apartments elsewhere.”

NYCHA spokesperson Michael Horgan said “several tenants who are required to relocate from Chelsea Addition are on the waiting list for transfers to senior-only developments.” He said the transfers depend on vacancies, adding: “To the extent residents of Chelsea Addition are not selected from the transfer waiting list for other senior developments, they must nevertheless relocate.”

Greg is an award-winning investigative reporter at THE CITY with a special focus on corruption and the city’s public housing system.