Public garden versus affordable housing: a court rules on housing
Manhattan’s Elizabeth Street Garden is a popular space where people can practice yoga, read poetry, or stroll outdoors among roses and daffodils and sculptures of lions. It’s also a rare government-owned site that the city believes would be a perfect place to put dozens of affordable apartments in one of the wealthiest areas of the city.
There is no room for either.
For more than 10 years, there has been a fight about preserving the garden or building the houses. But on Tuesday, the housing plan – at least for now – prevailed.
A New York appeals court cleared the way for a 123-apartment development for lower-income people over 62 and their families, overturning a lower court ruling that halted the project after opponents sued.
Adolfo Carrión Jr., the city’s housing commissioner, called the ruling a “massive victory”.
“The battle for this land shows how difficult it can be to build affordable housing, especially in neighborhoods that offer great economic opportunity,” he said.
Joseph Reiver, Executive Director of Elizabeth Street Garden, a volunteer-based non-profit organization who manages the maintenance of the land and filed the lawsuit in 2019, said he was “deeply disappointed” with the ruling, adding that the group’s lawyers were reviewing the decision. He said the group would seek permission to appeal the case to the state’s highest court.
“We continue to look for a solution that will provide more of the housing needed while preserving Elizabeth Street Garden for the community,” he said. “This solution is possible without any destruction.”
As New York City continues to grapple with a dire housing shortage, the fate of the garden has become yet another conflict among New Yorkers over which parts of the city to keep and which to rebuild to make way for a growing population.
Mr. Reiver’s father, Allan Reiver, is credited with creating the garden from a derelict and overlooked lot, which is located between Elizabeth, Mott, Prince and Spring streets. Allan Reiver passed away in 2019. The garden’s supporters see it as a unique, peaceful open space in one of the country’s most densely populated urban areas.
But in recent years, city officials and advocates for more housing have seized the redevelopment of the garden as an opportunity to build the needed affordable housing. All units will target people making less than $60,000, including some reserved for people who were previously homeless.
Proponents of the project note that developers plan to retain about 6,600 square feet of the site as an outdoor garden.
They said opposition to the plan epitomized the “not-in-my-backyard” mentality typical of many higher-income areas.
The lawsuit, filed as a challenge under the state’s environmental laws, also reflects how environmental regulations are increasingly being used to discourage new housing development.