The environmental evaluate course of for the proposed demolition of New York Metropolis Housing Authority (NYCHA’s) Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea (FEC) Homes in Manhattan is underway. Tenant organizers and public housing residents protested the demo finally week’s hearings.
The town’s $1.9 billion redevelopment plan is to demolish 24 buildings throughout seven acres of public housing improvement land –– one of many largest deliberate public housing demolitions within the metropolis’s historical past –– and ideally transfer again in displaced, primarily Black and brown, Chelsea residents as soon as reconstruction is full.
The plan was launched in 2019, and the NYCHA Board authorised the Grasp Improvement Settlement in October 2024. The settlement enacted the Bridge Plan, which was supposed to offer extra safety, pest management, constructing system repairs, and customary space and in-unit repairs for the FEC earlier than and throughout the building of the brand new buildings. This shall be dealt with by the town’s Division of Housing Preservation and Improvement (HPD), the U.S Division of Housing and City Improvement (HUD), the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act (NEPA), and NYCHA.
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At this stage within the course of, NYCHA and HPD have launched a Draft Environmental Affect Assertion (DEIS), which features a detailed description of the proposed mission and its environmental impacts. The DEIS additionally describes six various zoning plans the town may pursue versus demolition.
“The discharge of the Draft Environmental Affect Assertion marks the subsequent step within the environmental evaluate course of, making certain that any proposed redevelopment is carried out in a considerate and accountable manner,” mentioned NYCHA Chief Government Officer Lisa Bova-Hiatt in an announcement. “As this course of strikes ahead, we’re excited that we proceed to maneuver nearer to the final word objective of delivering enhancements to 4,500 Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea residents.”
However finally week’s public listening to, dozens of devoted FEC residents and neighborhood leaders testified in opposition to the proposed demolition. Their main concern was the displacement and disruption of their neighborhood and its members.
“Environmental justice just isn’t merely concerning the bodily setting. It’s about the correct to stay, the correct to age in place, to lift kids, and construct intergenerational futures in a single’s house and neighborhood. What this plan fails to account for are the irreparable social, cultural, and emotional prices of displacement –– these are the very harms that environmental justice was meant to guard in opposition to,” mentioned Renee Keitt, president of the Elliott-Chelsea Tenants Affiliation and a number one voice in opposition to the demolition.
“There isn’t any justice in a course of that strips away communities below the guise of fairness. Justice, in its broadest sense, calls for truthful and neutral therapy, the prevention of hurt, and remedial motion when hurt is finished. This demolition proposal presents none of that,” she continued.
Jackie Lara, a Fulton Homes tenant and organizer, mentioned, “We’re not asking for luxurious. We’re asking to remain in our properties. Rehab is cheaper. Rehab is safer. Rehab is feasible. NYCHA simply doesn’t wish to do it as a result of there’s no billion-dollar contract connected to it.”
Along with fears of displacement, many spoke concerning the potential dangerous impacts the demolition might need on air and soil high quality for residents.
“This DEIS just isn’t a highway map ––– it’s a smoke display screen,” mentioned Layla Regulation-Gisiko, District Chief for Meeting District 75, Half A. “It glosses over contaminated soil, ignores hospital capability, and dismisses viable rehabilitation with out a single unbiased structural evaluate. This mission just isn’t about fixing public housing –– it’s about transferring public land to non-public palms.”
The DEIS public remark interval stays open till Monday, Could 19, 2025.
The final public listening to on the environmental DEIS was rescheduled for Could 8, 2025, because of a nationwide Zoom outage.
To join the listening to in Could, go to https://bit.ly/FEC-DEIS-Listening to. Written feedback could also be submitted electronically through e-mail to nepa_env@hpd.nyc.gov and, in laborious copy to HPD.
