NYCHA residents in Chelsea weigh their future under a planned redevelopment

The New York City Housing Authority is moving ahead with its plan to demolish and rebuild decades-old public housing complexes in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood with the help of private developers.

The agency, along with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, on Thursday night held the first of three public meetings on the likely environmental impact of the plan to transform the Fulton and Chelsea Elliott Houses.

One by one, dozens of tenants and community members stepped up to a microphone inside the packed Fulton Senior Center on 9th Avenue to share their thoughts on the project, which the majority of residents approved in a vote last year.

The proposal includes new mixed-income buildings with housing for all existing residents as well as community facilities and retail space. Developers Related Companies and Essence — which were previously selected by tenant leaders to run the properties under a switch to private management — have agreed to follow a “build-first” approach where 94% of the current residents will get to stay in their apartments until the new ones are ready, according to NYCHA.

The remaining 6%, who now live at the Fulton 11 and Chelsea Addition properties, would be relocated within the developments or Chelsea, the agency says. Their rents would remain at 30% of their adjusted gross household income.

Those who attended the meeting expressed differing views on whether the plan would benefit longtime tenants or potentially result in displacement and negative health effects during construction.

Fulton Houses resident Lechelle Dawson spoke passionately in favor of building new towers, expressing frustration about present-day living conditions there, including pests and unreliable gas and hot water. Her comments were met with both cheers and boos from the crowd.

“I want to live in a decent home just like other people,” Dawson said. “I have no place else to go. I can’t go and say I can buy a house. This is all I have.”

Ramiro Morales, another tenant, discussed his struggles with getting NYCHA to make repairs and address maintenance issues.

“How would you respond if you had my problems?” he asked the audience, unfurling a printed list of every work order he had submitted in the last 11 months over hot water in his apartment. “Would you accept these living conditions?”

But speaking to Gothamist after the meeting, resident Maya Perez said she was skeptical that the tenants wouldn’t be pushed out by the end of the redevelopment process.

“I feel like it’s just for profit, it’s not really for NYCHA tenants here, it’s only to gain affordable housing, it’s not at all for us,” she said. “Some things need to be done, like the piping, but I feel that it can be rehabilitated.”

Jackie Lara, who has lived at the complex for decades, said she was concerned about the possible health effects of the demolition process.

“Listen, I’m not afraid of change, absolutely not, but not by demolishing our buildings,” Lara said. “When the debris starts coming down, nobody’s gonna be able to breathe here because it’s gonna be like a 9/11 hitting everybody, and everybody’s gonna get sick.”

“All they’re doing is just selling us a dream,” she added.

The next two public meetings are scheduled for next Monday and Wednesday. Comments made at the meetings and submitted online will be included in the project’s Environmental Review Statement, which will examine the potential impacts of the plan.

NYCHA expects to complete the environmental review process by this fall and the overall redevelopment of the Fulton and Chelsea Elliott Houses in approximately six years.