FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NYCHA ADJOURNS BOARD MEETING RATHER THAN FACE TENANTS OPPOSING DEMOLITION

Fourteen speakers opposed demolition. When residents demanded answers, NYCHA halted its own meeting.

NEW YORK, NY — July 29, 2026 — The New York City Housing Authority abruptly adjourned its monthly Board meeting today after every speaker during the public comment session opposed the proposed demolition of the Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses.

WATCH THE NYCHA YOUTUBE VIDEO HERE

WATCH COALITION VIDEO FOOTAGE HERE

WATCH TESTIMONIES HERE

All fourteen public speakers called on NYCHA to abandon demolition, preserve Section 9 public housing, and pursue rehabilitation instead. Residents, tenant leaders, and community advocates warned that demolition and conversion through RAD/PACT would threaten tenant protections, destabilize the community, and permanently dismantle public housing in Chelsea.

After public comment concluded, tenants and community leaders remained in the boardroom chanting “No Demolition!” and “Shame!” and demanding that NYCHA respond to the concerns raised during testimony.

Rather than enter into dialogue with the residents it serves, NYCHA chose to halt its own business and adjourn the meeting.

“We shut them down today, and we are going to keep fighting because these homes are worth fighting for,” said Jackie Lara of the Fulton Houses.

“It’s difficult to keep my composure when face to face with the people who prioritize developers over community; our homes. It was a peaceful shutdown. Considering the circumstances it could have been worse.” said Celines Miranda, tenant leader representing Elliott-Chelsea.

“NYCHA’s Board needs to start listening to our community, and we will fight until the end,” said Miriam Salles.

Today’s adjournment exposed a growing crisis of confidence in NYCHA leadership. Residents have attended meetings, submitted comments, organized demonstrations, pursued litigation, and repeatedly demanded a meaningful discussion about rehabilitation without demolition. NYCHA has continued advancing its plan without adequately addressing those concerns.

“When every public speaker opposes your proposal, leadership has a choice: listen to the people or walk away,” said Layla Law-Gisiko, District Leader representing the area. “Today, NYCHA walked away.”

It was not lost on coalition members that NYCHA managed to pass all the real-estate agenda items moving 1756 apartments towards privatization before deciding to adjourn the meeting, demonstrating that the authority has become a real-estate agent rather than a steward of the public good.

Refusing to hear tenants contradicts the most basic principle of public service. NYCHA exists to serve public housing residents, not to silence them, evade them, or treat their opposition as an inconvenience.

The coalition said the fight to preserve Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea is far from over. Residents will continue using every legal, political, and public avenue available to stop demolition, defend Section 9 housing, and hold NYCHA accountable.

Media Contact:
Marni Halasa: 917-501-9444 - Layla Law-Gisiko: 646-420-6044

And without further ado, we leave you with the Chelsea community’s fair assessment of Mihir Zaveri’s New York Times article.

The Broader Political, Economic, Environmental, And Human Consequences Of The Proposal

“My reaction to The New York Times’ coverage of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses redevelopment was rather intense, so as it seems, were others! Many of us believe the reporting then and ongoing failure to confront the full scope of what is at stake is reprehensible.

Across the comments that follow, from tenant leaders, architects, planners, professors, attorneys, community advocates, and longtime residents, there’s a common theme: the Times has largely framed the controversy as a technical dispute over whether aging buildings should be renovated or replaced. Commenters argue that this framing excludes the broader political, economic, environmental, and human consequences of the proposal.

Obviously the central question is not whether public housing residents deserve safe and modern homes! The real question is why demolition, privatization, and large-scale luxury development are being presented as the primary or inevitable solution. But let’s be clear- key issues have been minimized, omitted, or treated as secondary: the transfer of public land into long-term private control; the conversion of residents from traditional Section 9 public housing into Section 8 programs; the introduction of thousands of market-rate apartments on land originally dedicated to public housing; the environmental costs of demolition; the displacement risks facing residents; and the billions of dollars in public subsidies required to make the project financially viable.

The sense by many of us, is that the NYT and sadly, much of the media, too often accept official narratives at face value while giving insufficient scrutiny to the financial interests driving the proposal. The developers stand to gain access to some of the most valuable publicly owned land in Manhattan, while taxpayers assume much of the risk...does anyone believe that the NYT made this clear? The debate is not simply about housing policy - nor should it be! It is about whether public assets accumulated over generations will remain dedicated to public purposes or become vehicles for private wealth extraction.

The coverage has understated the lived experience of residents confronting years of uncertainty, relocation pressures, and the prospect of losing communities built over decades. When stories emphasize deteriorating buildings, redevelopment opportunities, and new construction and fail to address the social networks, neighborhood stability, public open space, mature trees, and collective history that stand to be disrupted or destroyed, the NYT does its readers a disservice.”

The comments are not identical, some focus on environmental impacts. Others focus on public finance, housing policy, civil rights, democratic process, land-use planning, or tenant protections. Yet taken together they present a consistent challenge to the prevailing narrative: that demolition and redevelopment are the only realistic path forward.

Whether one agrees with these perspectives or not, they raise questions that deserve serious public examination. If journalism is meant to illuminate the full dimensions of a public controversy, then these voices suggest that a significant part of the story remains untold. What follows is an attempt to place those omitted facts, concerns, and perspectives into the public record.” —Sandy Reiburn, Chelsea Public Housing Coalition

Wolves Not Saviors, Propaganda Not Reporting

Mihir Zaveri’s New York Times article, Renovate or Replace: The Fight Over How To Fix N.Y.C Public Housing (published April 4, 2026), enraged Chelsea’s community and anyone who is watching the dismantling of our society. But the worst of it was James Baron’s New York Times article that made Mihir’s, and his newspaper’s credibility worse—you can’t have a colleague interview you from and for the same paper and expect people to take you seriously as a reporter.

As if they are the saviors, James Baron irredeemably asks, Can Developers Help Save Public Housing (article published on April 7, 2026); rather than face the truth that developers are wanting to see public housing’s demise. James leads into his supportive piece with borrowed lines from Mihir Zaveri’s article,

“A fight over four public housing developments in the trendy Chelsea neighborhood is escalating. It’s a high-stakes test of the city’s responsibility to its lowest-income residents”

that labels people trendy and poor, and minimizes the destruction of 18 buildings—homes for more than 3,000 people, and the theft of 13-plus acres, which include mini parks and playgrounds for the community.

A narrative emerges from the corporate playbook on ‘How to Gentrify a Neighborhood’—not their exact title, but surely something similar—to falsely describe Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses as “too run-down.”

As if it was a real interview, with an unbiased authority, Mihir shields Related Companies, the developer in question by never mentioning the enormous profits they will extract from the public’s coffers or from the bequeathed land mass. He blames the City for wanting “to demolish them all [the Fulton and Chelsea Elliott houses] and build replacements, a $1.2 billion project that would add nine new buildings with roughly 1,000 affordable apartments and 2,400 luxury units.”

Most of us, who are struggling in an unaffordable city, with unaffordable rents, understand the word ‘affordable’ is an abused term for rental units that are controlled and marketed by the real estate industry. However, let us assume the ‘City’ is in charge, putting more than 6,700 desperately needed uninhabited NYCHA apartments into the hands of developers while homelessness is up 57% seems a tad bit crazy, and exchanging valuable land for 1,000 (here is that word again) ‘affordable’ apartments—yet to be built, and allowing luxury investments on public land, tells the public that governance is either stupid or sleeping with the enemy. And Mihir is a tad off the mark, it is a 2.4 billion wealth extractive project that will surely grow.

The abundance theory, shot to hell long ago as a means to bring affordable living, is sustained by this ludicrous one sided deal; furthermore, applying the ‘democratic socialist’ label to a Mayor who wants to address the city’s housing shortage by supporting Related’s demolition and gentrification plan further discredits the plot, article, and Mamdani.

Someone must be passing notes: the shameless ‘socialist’ claim was also co-opted by the Daily Dirt, the trade newsletter of The Real Deal, a publication devoted to the emotional needs of the real-estate industry, and if Zohran Mamdani supports the demolition project, then anyone opposing the project must be a “total lunatic.” This is not logic. This is the most panic-laden argument I have ever heard. —Layla Law-Gisiko

“But the real lunatics are those who keep treading the same path, with the same sales pitch-build more luxury housing now and somehow affordability will eventually “trickle down” to everyone else. But many of my neighbors and all across Brooklyn have already lived through this experiment. Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy, Downtown Brooklyn, Long Island City, Gowanus — now headed into E Flatbush, Crown Heights, Brownsville and more-all sold with promises of affordability and inclusion. Yet rents have exploded, speculation continues to surge out of control, longtime residents were and continue to be pushed out, and neighborhoods have become increasingly inaccessible to working-class families. The people who benefited most were large developers, real estate investors, and politically connected interests and yes, the “abundance”” YIMBYS! —Sandy Reiburn, Chelsea Public Housing Coalition

“The backlash from some residents and neighborhood groups who question the involvement of the Related Companies, the creator of Hudson Yards”—another development failure—cannot be expressed vehemently enough; particularly when the articles exonerate and praises the developers, while they attempt to remove residents from their homes and deny them the right to due process.

Although inline historically as marketing tools, it is always amazing how the mainstream media will risk their credibility to participate in the ruling class’s alternative reality. The insidious deconstruction of our domestic landscapes, not to be compared, but akin to the United States’s Middle East demolition strategy, is happening at the behest of the ruling class.

The Related Companies, with their allies (NYCHA, HUD, Mayor, and elected officials) are stripping away the last bastion of truly affordable living that gave a lift to the white folks suffering poverty in the 1930s. Racing to take over the entire public housing stock, presumably, as they have in Chelsea, and under the guise of rehabilitation, Related will wage a campaign of terror until residents give up their homes to be demolished. —Terror is the right word, and not to be softened. The threats of eviction and annihilation of housing stability are prescient.

The gentrification plan for Chelsea is a violent one, and the ability to craft language that avoids facts and rationalizes Related’s plan to drive people from their homes and market themselves as a source of news, while being a sort of bulletin board and public relations firm for the ruling class - the people who run things, is truly remarkable.

NYCHA is the dirtiest of landlords, and Related (Stephen M. Ross, Jeff Blau) are making plans to profit from demolishing people’s homes to steal the land beneath it, but despite their assurance that ‘it is a done deal,’ and having gone to great lengths to make it so, try as they will, for the moment, the building are still standing, several years into the fight, and we determined to carry on with this David and Goliath story.

Amassing great wealth and power is dependent on pliable partners; the mainstream media, like most of our politicians, have misplaced their humanity to displace whole communities. However, no matter how heartless (think violent gentrification) and heinous (think genocide) the crimes, the people’s dignity, integrity, and humanity will never be lost, as long as we are in the fight. And like the past and present struggles, we will strive to leave an indelible mark, if not on the broader landscapes: the Nation, State, or City, it will be here in Chelsea. —John Mudd, MSCC, Midtown South Community Council.

Rebutting The Nonsense

“As residents and tenant leaders have testified, there are risks to preservation of truly affordable public housing inherent in this flawed proposal - for FEC residents and the city.

Mischaracterizations in the article, comments, and public opinion need to be clearly articulated and honestly discussed:

Residents “voted” for the proposal. Untrue. There was a poorly framed survey that did not include the option to rehabilitate. Only 30-35% of eligible residents submitted, and it was not framed as a vote.

Rehabilitation is more costly than demolition and rebuild.” This is debatable, and studies by the developers (who stand to make millions) are not public.

The buildings are in disrepair, and must be torn down for structural, environmental, and health reasons.” Unlikely. Buildings were built at different times, are maintained differently. Any demo would release more contaminants as renovation, and excavate contaminated soil. More buildings = more construction. Tree removal = more heat + pollution.

The residents, and city, would benefit from new “affordable” units.” Public housing IS affordable. Vacant lots and apartments should be developed first. Build build build is a real estate lobby land grab.

Residents will come back.” This is a risk w/bad precedent. Going from Section 9 to 8 removes protections - to the benefit of Related, who will be funded by NYCHA and HUD. Who benefits from the demo, besides developers?” —Leonel Lima Ponce, RA, WEDG (he/him) Academic Director, MS in Sustainable Environmental Systems (SES)

Real Estate Oligarchs Bulldozing Through Our Democracy

“Let’s get the facts straight: 1^st, Related Companies won the 2021 RFP to renovate—not demolish—the FEC buildings. Replacement is now estimated at $2.4 billion, nearly 5 times NYCHA’s first renovation estimate. Mr. Mihiri does not report that the proposed demolition is a no bid contract. This blatant land grab is opposed by CB 4 and the majority of residents. Over 1,000 residents have signed a petition against demolition. Civic leaders and tenants from public housing across the city are coming together to oppose the demolition.

2nd, Related has a track record as a bad actor misusing tax dollars and extracting wealth from public housing across NYC and the country. It is not hyperbolic to suggest that they are real estate oligarchs bulldozing through our democracy. Why would Mamdani support Related whose CEO was the major donor to the “Fix the City” super PAC to support Cuomo?

Demolition is a racist Robert Moses urban renewal 2.0 move. What James Baldwin called Negro Removal. Public land will primarily serve corporate interests. The majority of new units would be market-rate housing (where 2-bdrm rents are upwards of $9K in new buildings). Public housing residents would be segregated into 3 buildings on each campus. Luxury housing would outnumber public housing on land originally set aside for working class New Yorkers.

Finally, to characterize Section 8 as stable is misleading. Tenants in RAD/PACT developments have experienced eviction rates 3 times higher than the NYCHA average.

This is destabilizing and displacing the NYC we know and love.” —Caitlin Cahill, Professor, Pratt Institute

Lying By Omission

“This reporter ignored the lived reality of tenants facing aggressive displacement tactics, presenting redevelopment as benign while erasing coercive conditions on the ground. By framing demolition as inevitable, it omits the documented pressure campaign against residents who refuse to leave—shielding both NYCHA and Related Companies from scrutiny. This absence is not incidental; it misleads readers about the human cost of the plan. Here are just some of the lies and omissions in the story:
The failure to report sustained pressure on tenants by NYCHA and its contractor HOU/Housing Opportunities Unlimited, including repeated calls and door-knocking tactics.

The omission of conditions amounting to constructive harassment—loss of services, halted maintenance, and restricted amenities during relocation efforts.

The absence of accounts that tenants were given extremely short relocation timelines, creating coercive pressure rather than voluntary moves.

The failure to disclose allegations that Related Companies is outsourcing these tactics through third-party contractors to force vacancies.

The broader omission of how established communities and social networks are being destabilized to clear the way for redevelopment.” — Sandy Reiburn

No One Voted For This But The Developers

“There has never been a vote. It is a survey. Community Board 4 has a link to documents about the Chelsea NYCHA proposal: Chelsea NYCHA Proposal Updates – CB4 Manhattan Community Board . April 2024 NYCHA Presentation on Survey Results to Chelsea Land Use Committee. The totals have been manipulated to give the appearance of consent. The total of authorized residents who could have participated in the survey is 3388 and using the 550 numbers, you get 16.23%.” —Renee Keitt

Omitting Basic Facts To Deliver Profits To The Developer

“Zaveri misses several important facts. First, rehabilitation is ALWAYS preferable to demolition as it avoids the environmental cost of all the construction waste and the carbon and energy footprint of the new steel and concrete. Demolition also disrupts existing communities that cannot be easily restored. NYCHA and Related argue that the cost of demolition exceeds the cost of new construction, but this argument is undermined by their own RFP submission in 2021, in which they give MUCH lower cost estimates for the rehabilitation. It is clear that these numbers were inflated to serve the recent proposal. It is claimed that the current residents will be relocated to new buildings, but we know that rarely happens because of the time taken for the project and the decimation of the community. It is claimed that the project will deliver new “affordable” housing, but we all know that “affordable” rarely means rent that local working people can afford. What the project as proposed WILL deliver is profits for the developers and a bad precedent for public housing everywhere.” —David Burney | Visiting Professor, MS - Urban Placemaking and Management

Cooking Up Renovation Numbers

“After claiming renovation would cost as much as replacement, NYCHA now says new buildings will cost over a billion more. That’s taxpayer dollars in the form of tax credits and government bonds—money that could go toward new affordable housing instead of replacement of structurally sound buildings that were built to stand indefinitely. The claim that renovation would cost as much as replacement was reported by the author in an earlier, linked Times piece. Too bad the Times didn’t explore what became of that fiction or how Related was trusted to cook up its own renovation numbers and make an epic land grab. The real story here is a scandal that still needs airing.” —Sandy Reiburn

The Real Building Count And Estimated Cost Thus Far

“18 apartment buildings (not 17), would be demolished and replaced. NYCHA’s current reconstruction estimate is $2.4 billion, over three times the cost of the ongoing renovation of NYCHA’s comparably sized Edenwald Houses.”—David Holowka

Public Land For Public Good

“Your article on the proposed redevelopment of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses underscores the urgent need to improve conditions for NYCHA residents. That urgency is real. But so are the long-term implications of the plan now before the city.

Mayor Mamdani has spoken passionately about protecting public housing residents and safeguarding public assets. For that reason, many Chelsea residents are surprised to see him support a proposal that would replace existing buildings while introducing roughly 2,400 new market-rate apartments and shifting residents from traditional Section 9 public housing into Section 8 under PACT.

This is not simply a construction decision; it is a structural one. The plan would commit public land to a 99-year redevelopment model dependent in part on private market performance. City officials have stated that demolition and reconstruction cost roughly the same as rehabilitation, yet no independent, publicly released analysis comparing full in-place renovation with demolition tied to large-scale market-rate development has been presented.

Chelsea has seen substantial high-end growth over the past decade. The question is whether preserving deeply affordable housing must depend on expanding it further.

NYCHA residents deserve safe, modern homes. They also deserve durable guarantees that public land will remain dedicated first and foremost to the public good.

As a Chelsea resident, I hope this pause allows for fuller transparency before an irreversible decision is made.” —Susan Marshall

Is It Right To Oppose The Plan?

“It would rezone Chelsea to midtown-like density and shadow the High Line, Chelsea Park, and the historic south-facing grounds of the General Theological Seminary. It would eliminate an estimated 260 public-housing bedrooms. It would compact the residents of 18 public-housing buildings into only six new, much larger and taller ones that would be harder to monitor and secure. It would move older tenants from the safety of their all-senior building into one of these dangerously oversized new ones among tenants of all ages, a fate the seniors desperately fear. It would destroy 370 mature trees in what a federal report calls the city’s zone of least tree cover, least temperature reduction by trees, least pollution removal by trees, and least runoff avoided by trees—an affront to the very principle of environmental justice given the disproportionate impact on public-housing residents.

It would squander a staggering amount of embodied carbon on needless replacement of structurally sound buildings during a climate crisis. It would dedicate public land to more luxury than public-housing apartments. Its gentrification would increase Chelsea’s average rent. It would turn an area totaling more than three city blocks into a construction zone for at least 16 years, subjecting homes and schools to noise, disruption, fine particulate, and toxins released by disturbance of highly contaminated soil—contamination we know of, thanks to Layla’s research.

Perhaps least excusably, the project would use government funding to build new segregated housing.

Its entire design hinges on replacing the public-housing buildings before beginning the mixed-income ones, locking in segregation that would obviously profit NYCHA’s private-sector development partner, the Related Companies. To support the project but not its segregation, as Erik Bottcher has claimed to, is hypocrisy, like supporting the Confederacy but not slavery.

The plan would never have gotten off the ground but for the lie that renovating the NYCHA buildings would cost as much as replacing them. The agency now admits that this claim didn’t include the cost of demolition and new-building design. Documents obtained by Layla through Freedom of Information Law show the project cost has ballooned to $2.4 billion, about twice NYCHA’s renovation estimate. Only late in the game did the agency announce that revenue from the mixed-income units would go into its general fund for use throughout the city rather than improving Chelsea’s public housing as originally promised—in other words, that the plan was really about making Chelsea its cash cow.

When NYCHA and Related entered into a Master Development Agreement formalizing the plan, Layla characteristically put it under a microscope. She found that Related’s required capital investment in the project and financial penalty for withdrawing from it were inconsequential amounts. The developer would have no real skin in the project’s success or failure. If things went south, it could impose new demands for keeping the plan alive, effectively holding it hostage. That would be in line with what it did after winning the 2021 Request for Proposals to renovate, and specifically not demolish, Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea. Once Related had a lock on that project, it announced that its own conditions assessment had found the buildings in poorer condition than NYCHA had previously determined. Without ever sharing that estimate or providing a shred of evidence that renovation couldn’t proceed according to the original plan, Related blew the project scope up into a vast no-bid public contract for full demolition and replacement plus 3,500 mixed-income units.

Which brings us to a critical point about Layla’s unique opposition to demolition. Imagine the leverage Related would have if any buildings were removed and the project was stalled with gaping holes in the ground and relocated tenants marooned in temporary apartments.

Alongside many of the tenants, Layla supports saving Section 9, which she rightly calls “the only true public housing.” The other City Council candidates have thrown in the towel on Section 9, noting that its federal funding couldn’t be secured even when Democrats were in power. Layla argues that it’s not a law of nature that prevents funding but a lack of political will. She plans to use land-use authority, budget negotiations, and oversight authority—tools with which she is singularly familiar—to work with city, state, and federal partners.” —David Holowka

The Real Plan Is To Control The Land

“Under this plan, public land will effectively be removed from full public control for 99 years. Tenants will be moved from traditional Section 9 protection into Section 8, which ultimately provides significantly less protection. Long-term public accountability will be diluted, if not erased. Billions in public subsidy would be redirected into private balance sheets.

The Related Companies has a history of breaching their agreements with us in West Chelsea/Hudson Yards. They have engaged in delays and bait-and-switch tactics with both the current NYCHA project, which was required to be a renovation project NOT a demolition project, as well as the development of the Western Hudson Yards project (which was not only changed completely from the original agreement, but where former Mayor Eric Adams acquiesced to Related’s demand that the City pay the $2 billion for the “platform,” which should have been paid for by Related).

So what happens if Related breaches their agreement on this project, too? What if Related walks away without completing it? If they do, their financial liability amounts to virtually nothing. The taxpayer would be left holding the bag! And Chelsea might end up with a giant hole in the ground (and contaminated ground at that!) for decades. Think the Atlantic Yards Development: 14 years after the completion of the Barclay Center, a giant empty space remains where the required affordable housing has never been built.” —Michelle Spinner

Chelsea Deserves Rehabilitation—Not Privatization by Demolition

“The proposal by NYCHA and the Related Company to demolish public housing in Chelsea is being sold as necessary reinvestment. It is neither. It is a troubling convergence of flawed public policy, environmental harm, and the privatization of public land and public housing.

Rehabilitation should be the starting point. Demolition generates enormous waste, requires carbon-intensive new construction, and erases one of Chelsea’s most valuable assets: its mature trees and open spaces. These are not empty lots—they absorb stormwater, clean the air, and preserve access to light and sky in a dense neighborhood increasingly starved of all three. Once lost, they are gone for good.

Even more concerning is the displacement of long-standing communities. Residents are promised relocation and return, but experience tells us otherwise. Long timelines and upheaval scatter communities that took decades to build and cannot be easily restored.

The financial justification for demolition is also suspect. NYCHA and Related now claim it is more cost-effective than rehabilitation, yet their own earlier submissions projected far lower rehabilitation costs. The shift raises serious questions about whether the numbers are being used to rationalize a predetermined outcome.

Finally, the promise of new “affordable” housing should be viewed with caution. Too often, these units are priced beyond the reach of current residents. What is far more certain is that the plan will generate significant private profit while setting a dangerous precedent: the erosion of public housing through privatization.

Chelsea is not a blank slate. It is a living community with environmental assets and social networks that deserve investment—not erasure. We can—and must—choose rehabilitation over demolition, and public stewardship over private gain.” —Ron Shiffman, FAICP, Hon.AIA, Professor Emeritus, Pratt Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment. Member,New York City Planning Commission 1990 to 1996.

No Friend To The Public

“When Mamdani brought in Maria Torres-Springer and people tied to past administrations, it was already clear where housing policy was heading. The transition team’s choices, Annemarie Gray from Open NY and Jed Walentas from REBNY were another warning sign. Even the way he handled the ballot propositions said a lot: acting like he had no opinion beforehand, then suddenly announcing support right after voting. That kind of evasiveness always shows up later in policy.

NYCHA tenants were initially excluded from the rental ripoff hearings until public pressure forced a reversal. That alone says everything about how low a priority NYCHA residents are in this administration’s process. Keeping Leila Bozorg, one of the architects of RAD under Adams, was another signal that privatization-leaning approaches weren’t going anywhere. Then you have Cea Weaver, who dropped NYCHA the moment Good Cause Eviction became the focus. It paints a clear picture of who gets protected and who gets sidelined.

What makes it worse is watching people who claim to support social housing line up behind demolition. That contradiction speaks volumes. The refusal to acknowledge what demolition means for public housing communities is not a small oversight; it’s a political choice. NYCHA residents deserve better than this pattern of neglect dressed up as “policy.” —Sandy Reiburn

Lazy Reporting

“This is typical lazy NYT reporting. Work-Bites does a much better job of explaining the proposed project and all the intricacies. All the NYT needs to do is go on the CB4 website to their link regarding FEC to see all the reasons why this demolition plan doesn’t make sense. The contradictions of this NYCHA/Related proposal are so plentiful that no entity other than the government would throw good money after bad. Speaking of the government, nowhere does the NYT state that the NYCHA/Related plan would require around $2 billion in taxpayer subsidy, similar to Hudson Yards, in order to make the guaranteed 9% profit Related would get if this project were to move forward as planned. The NYT also doesn’t mention Atlantic Yards and other large-scale urban renewal schemes that never deliver on their promises of “affordable” housing.”—Tom Lunke

The Contradiction Is Calling The New York Times A Newspaper

“To the Editor, The New York Times

Your article (Are These Crumbling New York City Housing Projects Worth Saving? Mihir Zaveri, NYTimes, April 4, 2026) casts glass towers and nearby public housing as a contradiction, though it’s unclear what, exactly, that is meant to imply.

That public housing, by virtue of its presence, mars the view? That its proximity to wealth is itself an anomaly to be corrected? The description risks implying that the true incongruity is not the city’s inequality, but the continued existence of low-income residents within sight of prosperity.

New York has never thrived on separation but on proximity between classes, industries, and lives, and the coexistence of public housing and private wealth is not a contradiction, but a democratic ideal, so long as public housing receives adequate funding.

To describe these buildings as “left to slowly deteriorate” is only partially accurate. Deterioration is not a natural condition. It is the result of decisions, years of deferred maintenance, chronic underinvestment, and a failure of stewardship. What was once a failure to maintain becomes, conveniently, a rationale to demolish.

We should be clear about the distinction.

No one disputes the need for safe, well-maintained homes. The question is why the only solution presented is replacement, rather than repair, and who ultimately benefits from that choice.

If there is a contradiction at 27th Street and 10th Avenue, it is not that public housing stands near wealth. It is that a city capable of building $25 billion in new development has, for decades, failed to adequately care for the housing it already owns.

That is not an architectural, an engineering or even a fiscal problem. It is a political one.”—Layla Law-Gisiko, President The City Club of New York, District Leader AD75/A

Residents denounce demolition, privatization, rent increases, and the reckless excavation of contaminated soil

NEW YORK, NY — The Chelsea Public Housing Coalition representing Chelsea public housing residents, tenant leaders, community organizations, and neighborhood advocates will confront the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) at its Fiscal Year 2027 Annual Plan Public Hearing on Wednesday, July 29, 2026.

Coalition members will be available to the media beginning at 5:00 p.m. outside The Theater at City Tech, before entering the hearing to challenge a Draft Annual Plan that disguises demolition as preservation, privatization as investment, and the loss of resident protections as progress. Members will also be available after the event concludes.

The coalition will make clear that the proposed demolition of the Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses is not preservation. It is the destruction of public housing, the removal of homes from Section 9 traditional public housing, and the transfer of control to private development and management interests.

NYCHA’s own plan is riddled with contradictions.

The Draft Annual Plan conceals a major loss of public housing capacity. NYCHA repeatedly promises one-for-one replacement by apartment count and publishes tables showing no change in the number of apartments by bedroom count. But the approved Phase I RAD Conversion Commitments tell a different story. Fulton Phase I loses 150 bedrooms, while Elliott-Chelsea Phase I loses another 100 bedrooms. That is 250 bedrooms erased in the first phase alone. NYCHA is counting apartment doors while hiding the disappearance of family-sized housing.

The plan manipulates the history of resident participation. It invokes the Resident Review Committee’s earlier selection of a development partner in a way that suggests residents approved the current demolition scheme. They did not. The partner was selected before wholesale demolition was decided. A process that began as rehabilitation cannot be retroactively presented as consent to raze the campuses.

The Draft Annual Plan further claims that resident rights and protections will be maintained, while admitting that conversion will likely increase what tenants pay in rent and utilities. The increase will be phased in over three to five years. A phased-in rent increase is still a rent increase.

Residents should not be forced to pay more because NYCHA has chosen to remove their homes from Section 9 and convert them to Project-Based Section 8. Nor should NYCHA be permitted to market this loss of legal status, subsidy structure, and public control as though nothing meaningful will change.

The coalition will also denounce the environmental danger of carrying out mass demolition and excavation on occupied campuses where soil contamination and other hazards have been identified. The proposal threatens to expose residents, workers, children, seniors, and neighbors to contaminated dust and toxic materials over years of construction.

NYCHA has not earned the public’s trust or support. It has not provided a transparent, credible, and enforceable plan showing how residents will be protected from contaminated soil, airborne toxins, construction hazards, and prolonged exposure.

The coalition is demanding that NYCHA:Stop the demolition of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea.

• Preserve Section 9 public housing.

• Reject privatization.

• Fund full rehabilitation of the existing buildings.

• Release all environmental and soil-testing records.

• Protect residents from displacement, rent increases, toxic exposure, and years of construction disruption.

Public housing residents are not an obstacle to be removed. Their homes are not vacant land. Their rights are not bargaining chips. Their health is not an acceptable cost of redevelopment.

The coalition will tell NYCHA plainly: repair public housing, do not demolish it; protect residents, do not privatize their homes; and stop calling destruction preservation.

MEDIA AVAILABILITY

Wednesday, July 29, 2026, at 5:00 p.m.
Outside The Theater at City Tech
285 Jay Street, Downtown Brooklyn

Public housing residents, tenant leaders, and coalition representatives will be available for on-camera interviews and press questions before and after the hearing.

PUBLIC HEARING

NYCHA Fiscal Year 2027 Annual Plan Public Hearing
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
The Theater at City Tech
285 Jay Street, Downtown Brooklyn

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By Samantha Ortiz, Fulton Houses Resident

I recall that in a few of Related Properties past meetings, Jamar Adams said we the residents would get wrist bands to enter the elevator and only be able to get off on the floor we will live on.

No community, no checking on each other.

Did I just wake up from a bad dream? Jamar Adams said in a few meetings at the Fulton senior center. He said us residents would get a wristband to be able to use the elevator and we’d only be able to get off on the floor we’d live on.

In my personal opinion they (Related) want to divide and conquer the unity and community. To them N.Y.C.H.A means New York Housing Authority

To me N.Y.C.H.A means Neighbors Yearning Community Honoring Awareness

United We Stand

Fund Section 9.

Keep PUBLIC HOUSING PUBLIC

SAVE SECTION 9

SAVE OUR COMMUNITIES

Thomas R. Davis

The Weaver Federal Building

451 7th Street, SW, Room 6230

Washington, DC 20410

July 13, 2026

Dear HUD Officials,

We, the residents of the Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses, are writing to seek HUD’s intervention and assistance in holding the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) accountable for its ongoing efforts to demolish our public housing developments and transfer control of our homes to private interests through the PACT/RAD program.

For years, HUD has presented itself as the federal agency responsible for protecting public housing residents and ensuring that our rights are preserved. Today, we are asking HUD to prove that commitment by investigating the actions taking place at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses and by ensuring that the voices of residents are not ignored in favor of private development interests.

One of our greatest concerns is HUD’s approval of a process that allows NYCHA and its private partners to pursue PACT conversion without a clear deadline for obtaining tenant signatures. As a result, residents have been subjected to ongoing pressure, intimidation, and harassment in an effort to secure signatures on Project-Based Section 8 leases.

Related Management and Housing Opportunity Unlimited (HOU), despite not having received final approval to take over our developments, have been permitted to enter our communities and aggressively pursue residents through repeated phone calls, letters, door-to-door visits, and fear-based messaging. Residents are routinely warned about potential consequences if they do not sign, creating an atmosphere of anxiety and coercion.

By allowing this process to continue indefinitely, HUD and NYCHA have effectively sanctioned a system in which residents can be pressured for as long as necessary until the desired outcome is achieved. The objective appears clear: obtain enough signatures to facilitate a transfer of public housing to private management, regardless of the emotional toll imposed upon tenants.

We also question HUD’s willingness to permit the demolition of buildings that remain structurally sound. Historically, demolition of public housing required substantial justification, including evidence that buildings were obsolete and beyond reasonable rehabilitation. What happened to the requirement for an Obsolescence Report?

Residents have repeatedly asked why developments that continue to house thousands of families can now be targeted for demolition without the same level of scrutiny that HUD previously required. The disappearance of this standard raises serious concerns about whether demolition has become a predetermined outcome rather than a carefully evaluated necessity.

Further, HUD has allowed misleading claims regarding rehabilitation costs to go largely unchallenged. Residents have repeatedly heard assertions that rehabilitation would cost more than demolition and redevelopment. Yet the public has not been provided with transparent, independent analyses that justify these claims. We believe residents deserve a full accounting of the numbers being used to support a proposal that would permanently destroy public housing and displace generations of families from their homes.

Equally troubling is NYCHA’s reliance on a non legally binding survey to justify demolition. This survey was not a vote. Unlike other NYCHA voting processes related to housing conversions, residents were not required to verify their identities at a designated polling location. Instead, the survey remained open for more than two months and was accessible through QR codes and online participation methods that lacked meaningful safeguards.

According to NYCHA’s own figures, only approximately 550 residents selected demolition. Nevertheless, this survey is now being presented as evidence of resident support for a plan that would permanently eliminate Section 9 public housing.

Residents were also invited to tour buildings owned by the private developer before completing the survey. These presentations highlighted the benefits of the proposed redevelopment with the purpose into enticing tenants to choose demolition while failing to adequately explain the consequences of losing traditional Section 9 public housing protections. At the same time, HOU workers and other representatives conducted extensive door-knocking campaigns while tracking survey responses and encouraging residents to select demolition.

This process cannot reasonably be characterized as a neutral assessment of resident opinion.

Meanwhile, the overwhelming opposition to demolition has been consistently documented. More than 1,000 Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea residents have signed petitions opposing demolition. Residents have attended Community Board 4 meetings, Environmental Impact Statement hearings, Public Housing Committee hearings, NYCHA meetings, rallies, demonstrations, and numerous public forums. Time and again, residents opposed to demolition have appeared in large numbers and presented detailed, substantive arguments against the proposal.

The surrounding Chelsea community has likewise expressed significant concerns regarding demolition, displacement, affordability, and the loss of public housing. Yet these voices continue to be disregarded.

Residents are left with the unavoidable impression that the outcome has already been decided and that public participation is merely being used to create the appearance of community engagement while the interests of private developers remain the true priority.

We are therefore asking HUD to:

1. Investigate the conduct of NYCHA, Related Management, and Housing Opportunity Unlimited regarding tenant outreach and lease-signing practices.

2. Establish clear limitations and deadlines on lease-signing campaigns so residents are not subjected to indefinite pressure and harassment.

3. Require full public disclosure of all analyses used to support claims that demolition is more cost-effective than rehabilitation.

4. Review the elimination or waiver of historical obsolescence requirements and explain how demolition of structurally sound public housing is being justified.

5. Investigate NYCHA’s use of a non-binding survey as support for demolition and determine whether the process met acceptable standards of fairness and integrity.

6. Consider the documented opposition of residents and the broader community before approving any action that would eliminate Section 9 public housing at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses.

We are seeking HUD’s help because we still believe the agency has a responsibility to protect public housing residents. We ask HUD to demonstrate that it is not a participant in the dismantling of public housing, but rather a guardian of the residents it was created to serve.

The residents of Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses deserve transparency, accountability, and a fair process. Most importantly, we deserve to have our voices heard before decisions are made that will permanently alter our homes and our communities.

Sincerely,

FEC Tenants Against Demolition

stopfecdemolition@gmail.com

Fec Against Demolition Letter To Hud

124KB ∙ PDF file

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SIGN THE PETITION

To: Mayor Zohran Mamdani

We are residents of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses, along with neighbors and supporters across New York City. We are calling on Mayor Mamdani to stop NYCHA and their developer partners, Essence and Related Companies, from demolishing and privatizing our homes.

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This proposal would:

Demolish and privatize 18 buildings, destroying over 2,000 public housing apartments.

Put an estimated 4,500 residents at risk of displacement.

Take at least 15 years and will force existing public housing residents to live in a demolition site.

Excavate contaminated land with arsenic, asbestos, and lead into our air!

Destroy a mature urban forest comprising 370 venerable trees.

Hand public land in Chelsea over to private developers to build luxury housing. Over 2500 units will be market rate!

This is not preservation, it is displacement, privatization, destruction, and an environmental justice disaster.

The Truth About the Demolition Proposal

NYCHA and its private partners claim demolition is necessary. But residents know the truth:
Our buildings are structurally sound, they are not “falling apart”.

Demolition will cost at least one billion more than conducting repairs.

The so-called “resident support” comes from a misleading survey with low participation.

Over 1,000 residents have signed petitions opposing demolition.

Despite this, the Mayor’s office has stated the plan should move forward—against the will of the community.

SIGN THE PETITION

What’s at Stake

If this plan goes forward:

Public housing in Chelsea will be eliminated as converting section 9 units into project based section 8 effectively removes them from the federal public housing stock, which means that tax payer dollars go to the developer.

Residents will face years of construction, displacement, and uncertainty.

Public land will be turned into luxury housing.

A dangerous precedent will be set for both privatizing and demolishing NYCHA developments citywide.

We Demand Action

We call on Mayor Mamdani to:

STOP the demolition and privatization of Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea Houses.
STOP all evictions and forced relocations.
FUND repairs needed at the FEC houses to preserve public housing.

Stand With Us

Public housing is one of the last sources of truly affordable housing in New York City. Our community is diverse, working-class, and deeply rooted. We are fighting to stay in our homes and protect public housing.

Mayor Mamdani was elected on a promise to protect working people—not private developers. Now is the time to act.

Sign this petition to stand with Chelsea residents and defend public housing as a public good. This is a defining moment.

SIGN THE PETITION

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NEW YORK — The Chelsea Public Housing Coalition is deeply disappointed by the Appellate Division’s decision affirming the denial of a preliminary injunction against NYCHA’s demolition and privatization plan for Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses.

The Coalition is reviewing the decision with counsel and exploring all available legal and advocacy options. The court’s decision clears the way for NYCHA to proceed, but it does not resolve the broader questions of displacement, privatization, or the future of public housing.

The Coalition continues to advocate for the comprehensive rehabilitation of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses without demolition, privatization, or the permanent displacement of residents. The existing buildings can be modernized while preserving Section 9 public housing and allowing tenants to remain in their community.

The ruling does not diminish the suffering being inflicted upon tenants, nor does it end their opposition to the plan. Many residents are elderly, disabled, medically vulnerable, or have lived in their homes for decades.

Tenants and community leaders remain deeply concerned about the social and environmental consequences of the plan proposed by Related Companies, Essence Development, and NYCHA. The proposal would tear down 18 buildings, construct luxury housing on approximately 70 percent of the public-housing campuses, subject residents to more than 15 years of demolition and construction, and remove nearly 400 trees.

The court acknowledged that relocation may be difficult, particularly for seniors, but concluded that tenants had not demonstrated irreparable harm.

The Coalition believes that the evidence demonstrates otherwise. For residents in their eighties and nineties, people with heart conditions, and tenants who have already been hospitalized under the stress of displacement, the harm is tremendous, ongoing, and permanent.

This ruling may remove a legal restraint, but it does not create tenant consent. It does not make demolition humane. It does not cleanse privatization of its consequences. And it does not transform a land grab into something acceptable.

For almost a year, NYCHA, Related Companies, and Essence Development have hounded vulnerable residents with repeated telephone calls, coercive meetings, threatening letters, and relentless pressure to surrender their homes.

These are the tactics of institutions that believe elderly, disabled, immigrant, and low-income New Yorkers can be frightened, isolated, and worn down. They should be ashamed. Their conduct deserves the sternest condemnation from every elected official who claims to care about public housing, racial justice, or human dignity.

“We are old people. I am turning 80 years old this week. Some of my neighbors are older than 90,” said Yu Zhen Story, a Chelsea Addition tenant. “We are heartbroken to be pushed out of our home. My neighbors and I are stressed. Some have heart issues, several have been hospitalized, and others have serious health concerns. We want to find a place to rest for the end of our lives. And now, to think about living in a demolition site for over 15 years and having to move two times—we wonder if we will even be able to survive this. Many have already died. We are scared.”

“The court decision is very disappointing for those of us who are most vulnerable,” said Jane Rao, an Elliott-Chelsea Houses resident. “Privatization has more risks for us. Why are they demolishing buildings that are in good shape? We need repairs and modernization, not demolition for profit. Housing is for living in, not for profit.”

“I’ve lived in Fulton for 24 years,” said Jackie Lara, a tenant leader at Fulton Houses. “We are deeply disappointed that the TRO has been lifted, but this is not the end of our fight. Our homes are worth fighting for, and so are our families and communities. A lifted TRO does not lift our hope, determination, or resolve. This fight is far from over.”

“I’m very disappointed with the decision,” said Samantha Ortiz, a Fulton Houses resident. “They are not considering that this will cause many people to be homeless—and if they think the homeless problem is bad now, wait until this kicks in. No privatization, no demolition, and no displacement. Save Section 9, keep public housing public, save our homes. Stop supporting the money-hungry leeches and start supporting the tenants.”

“The court sided with the YIMBY agenda, with big developers, and with all the elected officials who wish to see the last affordable housing in Chelsea get destroyed,” said Diego Figueroa, a community organizer. “This plan would lead to mass gentrification, and those who call our coalition ‘obstructionists’ hide behind a racist veil that wishes to eradicate Black and Brown people from the West Side. We will keep fighting, and this is far from over.”

“I think we need political power to enhance the movement in Chelsea and Fulton,” said George Weaver, a tenant leader, organizer, and resident of Fulton Houses. “I’m hopeful that Layla Law-Gisiko will get reelected to her District Leader seat, that Jack Kennedy Schlossberg will continue to support Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea, and that he will run for U.S. Congress in 2028. I hope that Fulton and Chelsea tenants come out and support them.”

“This is a land grab masquerading as a housing plan and sold to tenants through the fraudulent premise that demolition and privatization are the only options,” said Layla Law-Gisiko, District Leader for AD75 Part A and a member of the Coalition to Save Public Housing. “That premise is false. NYCHA has chosen the path that hands public land to private developers with massive subsidies while uprooting the people who live on it. The inevitable consequences are displacement, gentrification, and the destruction of one of the last deeply affordable communities on Manhattan’s West Side. A land grab with a relocation consultant is still a land grab.”

“The Chelsea public-housing fight belongs to everyone,” said John Mudd, president of the Midtown South Community Council. “It brings together people from brownstones, rent-stabilized and rent-controlled apartments, and longtime and new renters to fight a predatory class that is raining hell upon our society by monetizing our basic human needs—health, housing, and food—stealing our public assets and natural resources to enrich themselves and make us poorer. Despite the abuses inflicted upon us, we, the people, will forever come out swinging.”

Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea residents continue to demand repairs and modernization without demolition, privatization, or displacement. A court decision cannot manufacture tenant consent, erase the human consequences of this plan, or extinguish the determination of residents to defend their homes.

The Chelsea Public Housing Coalition will continue organizing, documenting the treatment of tenants, challenging coercive relocation practices, and pursuing every available avenue to protect Section 9 public housing and the people who depend upon it.

No demolition. No privatization. No displacement.

Keep public housing public.

About the Chelsea Public Housing Coalition

The Chelsea Public Housing Coalition is a coalition of tenants, tenant leaders, community organizations, advocates, and neighbors working to preserve Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses as permanently public, deeply affordable Section 9 housing.

The Coalition supports comprehensive rehabilitation without demolition, privatization, or displacement.

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On Thursday, a court removed one obstacle to NYCHA’s demolition plan of public housing in Chelsea. It has not completed the federal conversion, emptied the buildings; it has certainly not persuaded the people who live there to surrender their homes.

By Layla Law-Gisiko

In New York, cruelty is most effective when written in the passive voice. Residents will be relocated. Buildings will be demolished. Public housing will be privatized. Nobody appears to be doing anything to anyone. The verbs simply descend from the administrative high lands, immaculate and blameless, bearing letterhead and crests.

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On July 9, the Appellate Division affirmed two lower-court orders denying preliminary injunctions against NYCHA’s plan to tear down the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses. The decision was received as a huge disappointment. It lifts the temporary judicial restraint that had stopped NYCHA from advancing the project, and it allows the housing authority and its private partners, Related Companies and Essence Development, to resume the machinery of relocation. Tenants are reviewing the ruling and exploring the options that remain.

But the decision requires a bit of translation from the ceremonial dialect of appellate law into ordinary English.
In one case, the court determined that the challenge was filed too late, although the actual decision by NYCHA was made at a September 2025 board meeting, well within the allotted window. In the other, the court found that the evidence offered at the preliminary-injunction stage was insufficient and that the tenants had not demonstrated “irreparable harm.” The judges acknowledged that relocation could be “difficult, particularly for seniors” - a vast understatement when you are discussing people in their 80’s whose frailty is indisputable - but treated that difficulty as something short of legally irreparable.

This is where law and life begin to lose sight of each other.

For a developer, relocation is a line in a project schedule. But for Ms Yu Story, a beloved Chelsea neighbor, whose smile and warmth are only matched by her resolve, the decision is the dismantling of the last stable place in her life. For Mr Wu and his wife, both in their 90s, the promised right to return several years from now has a rather grisly footnote: actuarial eligibility. NYCHA speaks warmly of moving people twice, as if it was doctor’s advice for taking more daily steps, or recommending an invigorating change of scenery. The plan is forcing elderly residents to spend the end of their lives inside a fifteen-year demolition program, and clearly their lifespan will be outmatched by the project timeline.

The ruling did not decide that demolition is wise. It did not find that tenants consented to the plan. It did not determine that the only possible way to repair public housing is to hand its control to private developers, convert its federal subsidy, and surround it with thousands of new apartments. During oral arguments, the judges of the Appellate Division steered clear of any policy considerations. Their decision narrowly addresses timeliness, evidence, preliminary relief, and the demanding legal standard for an injunction.

Somehow, this has already been translated by the project’s enthusiasts into a joyful endorsement of the wrecking ball. Unsurprisingly, NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt said “NYCHA is pleased”. Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg stated “I’m happy”.

Let us pause the champagne cart.

NYCHA’s Draft Fiscal Year 2027 Annual Plan states that HUD issued RAD Conversion Commitments (RCC) for Phase I of the project on January 23, 2026, for Fulton and January 30, 2026, for Chelsea, Chelsea Addition, and Elliott. An RCC is no ceremonial letter. HUD issues it after reviewing and approving the financing plan, and it signifies that HUD has approved the RAD plans for closing, subject to the commitment’s terms and conditions. Pretending otherwise would be inaccurate.

But approval for closing is still not the closing itself. Until the RAD transaction closes, the properties have not legally converted from Section 9 public housing to Section 8 private housing subsidy. Under the contemplated transaction; the new housing-assistance contract has not taken effect; and the financing and operative closing documents have not become effective as a completed transaction.

And the RCC was issued only for two buildings, Fulton 11 and Chelsea Addition, the seniors-only building. It has not been issued for the rest of the campuses. The short of it: at the time this article is written, all 18 residential buildings on both campuses remain under the traditional public housing Section 9 subsidy.

New York City’s demolition rules require a building, structure, or affected portion to be “vacant and unoccupied” before a demolition permit may be issued. NYCHA’s own phasing documents follow the same unavoidable sequence: move the households, then demolish the building. At Fulton, the official chart places the relocation of Fulton 11 residents before the demolition of Fulton 11. Later phases likewise require residents to be moved into replacement buildings before their existing buildings come down.

That sequence matters. The buildings must be empty before demolition begins, and many tenants continue to refuse to be removed. Their presence is the central fact that NYCHA and its partners have spent months attempting to erase. Back in the winter of 2025, NYCHA took senior tenants to court, shamefully seeking money damages, to coerce them to relocate. But once tenants secured legal representation, NYCHA dropped the case.

Residents describe a raging harassment campaign: repeated telephone calls, threatening letters, and pressure applied particularly to elderly, disabled, immigrant, and non-English-speaking tenants. The lawsuit in State Supreme Court, the mail that suddenly stopped being delivered, the building directory and intercom mysteriously erased, as if erasing the names would also erase the physical presence of the tenants.

NYCHA and Essence consultants’ theory appears to be that persistence will eventually produce consent, a narrative that has been pushed despite the explicit fights, protests and votes. During the 2025 and 2026 election cycles, the Election Districts making up the two public housing campuses overwhelmingly voted for the anti-demolition candidates. Jackie Lara, a first-time candidate, and tenant of Fulton Houses ran for city council to unseat Erik Bottcher and won both election districts by a clear margin.

When I ran for the open seat this year, voters of public housing supported me overwhelmingly, and in the election district representing Elliott-Chelsea, I received over 80% of the votes. These are not merely anecdotal: these votes are a clear referendum: tenants oppose this plan, and despite the best, and most expensive attempts by Related and Essence to change this narrative, the naked truth cannot be obscured.

NYCHA’s plan rests on a fraudulent premise: that demolition and privatization are the only available options.

They are the options NYCHA selected. That is a very different sentence.

Repair and modernization were dismissed as financially or logistically infeasible by the very institutions committed to pursuing demolition. Market-rate construction is presented as the medicine, private control as the delivery system, and public land as the unfortunate spoonful of sugar required to make the transaction go down.

But the proposal relies on a loan so expensive that it will balloon to $1 billion at maturity, and it relies at 93% on public funding and financing, not on Related’s equity. The resulting plan will demolish an irreplaceable Section 9 community and replace it with mixed-income development under a new management and subsidy structure at risk to expiring or being depleted.

This is a land grab with excellent stationery.

Its consequences are foreseeable. Displacement does not always arrive as an eviction notice. Sometimes it comes as exhaustion: repeated moves, construction dust, broken social networks, inaccessible temporary apartments, lost neighbors, missed medical appointments, and years of uncertainty.
Many tenants have told me that they have applied for a transfer in the hope that they will remain under the Section 9 subsidy, elsewhere in NYC. Sometimes a resident accepts an off-site transfer because the pressure has become unbearable. The spreadsheet then records a successful relocation. The neighborhood records another disappearance.

The transformation of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea would drastically accelerate the gentrification of the West Side. Public housing has preserved a place for low-income, Black, Brown, Asian, immigrant, elderly, and disabled New Yorkers in a neighborhood that they built, a neighborhood where the private market would otherwise reserve for people who regard the eight-dollar cappuccino as a daily necessity. Destroying that public anchor and rebuilding the campuses around thousands of additional market-rate luxury apartments will alter the political, economic, and social balance of the neighborhood. Calling the plan “mixed-income” does not make that consequence less real. It merely places a deceitful hyphen over it.

NYCHA and Related may believe the court decision has settled the matter. It has settled one chapter of litigation. The federal process still has gates. The demolition process still has rules. The buildings still contain residents. And the tenants still possess the inalienable habit of speaking for themselves.

Their refusal matters because the project’s moral legitimacy depends upon a fiction of resident support. Every tenant who says “no” exposes the gap between consultation and consent. Every senior who refuses to pack reveals what the development schedule tries to conceal: the land is occupied, the apartments are homes, and the people being “relocated” have names. NYCHA and Related have tried very hard to ignore tenants’ voices but it is becoming impossible.

The court has lifted the temporary restraint. It has not lifted the tenants’ fear, erased their rights, completed the federal conversion, or emptied the buildings. Most of all, it has not converted a land grab into an act of public benevolence.

NYCHA may have won permission to resume pushing.
They have not won tenants support.

By Jackie Lara

My name is Jacqueline Lara, and this is my story.

There was a time when I had no place to call home. I lived in a homeless shelter with my children. I was also six months pregnant. I lived in the shelter with no hope for what the future would bring and wondered whether I would ever have the stability that so many people take for granted.

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When I was finally offered an apartment, it wasn’t just housing; it was a second chance. It became my safe place, where I could rebuild my life, find peace, and regain hope. These walls hold more than my belongings. They hold my memories, my healing, and the security I fought so hard to find.

Today, that security is being threatened. The lifting of the TRO is heartbreaking, and the possibility of demolition fills me with fear. I know what it feels like to lose everything. I know how it feels to be homeless. I never want to experience that again. This isn’t just about buildings; it’s about people, seniors, and people with disabilities.

We are asking to be treated with dignity and to have our homes protected. I will continue to fight because this community saved me and my family. I don’t want to be homeless again.

By Sandy Reiburn

There’s a reason the story of David and Goliath has survived for thousands of years. It was never really about a giant. It was about power.

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It was about what happens when ordinary people refuse to surrender to institutions that insist resistance is futile. Today, New York has its own Goliath.

It isn’t one man or one corporation-rather it’s a political machine built from government agencies, billion-dollar developers, public relations consultants, nonprofit intermediaries, lobbying organizations, compliant media narratives, and an endless stream of taxpayer dollars. It speaks the language of compassion while practicing the politics of dispossession.

And standing before it are a handful of elderly and disabled public housing residents in Chelsea.

The Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses are being described as obsolete. Their demolition is being sold as inevitable. Their replacement is being celebrated as progress. The official narrative insists that destroying public housing is somehow the best way to save public housing .

If that sounds absurd, it is because it is. For decades, New York City allowed its public housing to deteriorate through chronic underinvestment. Officials now cite that deterioration as proof that public ownership has failed, while presenting privatization through the federal PACT/RAD model as the only realistic solution.

This is not simply a housing policy-it’s a political choice and one that carries enormous consequences for the future of public land, democratic accountability, and the meaning of housing as a public good and a human right.

Excuse my bemusement...but the irony is difficult to ignore. Mayor Mamdani campaigned as a democratic socialist. He spoke passionately about housing as a human right. He criticized speculative real estate. He promised a different future. Yet one of the first major housing battles of his administration has become a defense of one of the largest privatization models ever imposed on New York City’s public housing.

His administration has embraced a redevelopment that transfers long-term control of one of the city’s most valuable public housing campuses into a structure dependent upon private developers, private financing, long-term ground leases, and federal Section 8 contracts. And he took $1.5 billion dollars of our taxpayer money to hand it over to Section 8 (private run) NYCHA initiatives instead of using it to pay for the past due fixes of Section 9 public housing buildings in disrepair.

His administration has defended a plan in which thousands of market-rate apartments become financially necessary to make the project work. His administration has accepted the argument that demolition itself represents compassion.

That contradiction deserves public examination, skepticism and nothing less than challenging his misguided conclusions.

Equally troubling is the role of officials whose public identities have long been associated with tenant advocacy. The language of “tenant protection” has increasingly become the language of tenant management. And it’s farcical that residents are encouraged to become stakeholders in decisions already made which are antithetical to their actual protections!

Meetings become presentations; consultation becomes persuasion, participation becomes public relations and those who disagree become obstacles rather than stakeholders! Meanwhile, the voices most directly affected—the elderly, disabled residents and long-time families who built their lives in these communities—are too often portrayed as resisting progress itself. But progress for whom?

For generations, NYCHA represented something remarkable-it was not charity-it was public infrastructure, just like libraries, like parks, like public schools. It used to be that housing existed outside the logic of maximum profit because government accepted that some human needs should not depend entirely upon market returns.

That principle is now quietly being rewritten...come on fellow New Yorkers...public housing becomes “underutilized land”? Communities become “development opportunities”? Homes become “sites”? Residents become “units”?

Once the language changes before the land changes...it’s only a matter of time that the land changes forever.

The Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea redevelopment portends an unconscionable a model for the future which is precisely why this fight matters so much. If Chelsea becomes the template, dozens of other NYCHA campuses may eventually be viewed not first as communities deserving reinvestment, but as real estate awaiting financial optimization.

The fight isn’t merely about one neighborhood-it’s about defining what New York believes public housing actually is.

The recent appellate ruling allowing redevelopment to proceed is undoubtedly a setback for the residents who sought temporary judicial relief. Courts decide legal questions-but dammit, they do not settle moral ones. History is filled with lawful decisions later recognized as profound mistakes as we’ve seen. Every movement for justice has experienced courtroom defeats before achieving political victories.

The residents who continue fighting understand something many policymakers have forgotten which is to say, the issue is larger than any single lawsuit. We all must defend the idea that public land should remain public. That public housing should not become dependent upon private profit, that elderly residents should not bear the burden of fixing decades of governmental neglect and that government cannot manufacture a crisis through years of underfunding and then declare privatization the only available rescue.

David never defeated Goliath because he was stronger. He prevailed because the giant had become convinced that power itself guaranteed victory. Every great political machine eventually develops the same illusion -beginning to believe its consultants more than its citizens.

On one side are billions of dollars, elite law firms, government agencies, celebrated developers, political influence, and carefully crafted messaging about abundance, affordability, and transformation.

On the other side are residents carrying something far less fashionable but ultimately more enduring: memory, community, public ownership, constitutional principles and an unwavering belief that a city cannot sell off its moral foundation one redevelopment at a time.

David’s greatest weapon was never the stone-it was his refusal to accept that the giant had already won.The people of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea are making the same choice. Whether they ultimately prevail in court is only one chapter of the story.

The larger question belongs to every New Yorker. Will we define housing as a human right because government directly provides and protects it or will we continue redefining that right until it depends upon private capital, market-rate cross-subsidies, and the goodwill of billion-dollar developers?

That is the battle now before us and history has not yet decided who the real giant is.

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