New York City Files Eviction Notice for Elizabeth Street Garden

New York City has issued an eviction notice to the Elizabeth Street Garden to clear the way for a long-contested affordable housing project in Lower Manhattan.

The 14-day notice is a step forward for Pennrose Development’s Haven Green, a proposed 123-unit affordable housing project with 37 apartments for formerly homeless seniors.

Philadelphia-based Pennrose, along with nonprofits Habitat for Humanity and Brooklyn-based RiseBoro Community Partnership, plan to complete construction by 2026.

“Elizabeth Street Garden is about to go from an exclusive VIP club for the rich to a 16,000-square-foot publicly accessible garden for the public,” tweeted housing advocate Aaron Carr, referring to the project’s 16,000 square feet of open space. (He noted that the current garden’s caretakers have made it more accessible since the city moved to reclaim it.)

The Adams administration, like the de Blasio and Bloomberg administrations before it, has backed the Little Italy development as part of the city’s efforts to address its affordable housing crisis.

“While hundreds of New Yorkers will finally receive much-needed affordable housing in an area that has built almost none, it shouldn’t have taken over a decade to approve,” said Annemarie Gray, executive director of pro-housing group Open New York. “We cannot solve our housing crisis until we stop allowing small groups of wealthy and well-connected people to block efforts to build more homes.”

Community gardens were typically created decades ago on city land with the understanding that the lots would ultimately be developed when economic conditions improved. But the gardens formed constituencies that did not want to honor that promise, arguing that the green space was rare and more important than whatever housing might replace it.

The Elizabeth Street Garden, however, began not as part of that program, but as a month-to-month lease by the city to an artist looking to display and sell sculptures.

In 2019, the nonprofit Elizabeth Street Garden challenged the city’s approval of the project, arguing that the environmental review conducted was insufficient. At one point, Judge Debra James nullified the environmental impact statement for the project, ruling that it failed to fully consider the project’s impact on open space in the neighborhood.

But in June the state’s top court sided with the Adams administration, finding that the Department of Housing Preservation and Development had reasonably determined the project would not have a significant adverse effect on the environment.

The court’s decision has left opponents with limited avenues to continue their legal fight against the development. The sculpture garden it is replacing began leasing the city-owned site in 2005, but traces its roots back to 1991, when the late Allan Reiver began leasing it from the city. Joseph Reiver, his son, is executive director of the current tenant, Elizabeth Street Garden Inc.

The Haven Green project has been in the works for more than a decade. Former Council member Margaret Chin identified the park as a potential development site in 2012 to address the city’s housing shortage.