New Tower Would Destroy Renovated Chelsea Playground: Report

CHELSEA, NY — The same site where a newly renovated $770,000 playground is slated to re-open this summer is now where the city's housing authority plans to build a new residential tower, the New York Times reported.

A playground at New York City Housing Authority's Fulton Houses in Chelsea is slated to open with hundreds of thousands of dollars in improvements — like a cushioned play surface, new barbecues, and water sprinklers, the Times reported.

But the open space is now being eyed by the city as the site for a new tower to be built — a plan under a larger project within NYCHA to bring in mixed-income private developments onto the property to help raise the cash for long-needed repairs at the buildings.

Residents told the Times it is an example of the housing authority's dysfunction — and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

"I think, in all honesty, it is a waste of taxpayers' money," Miguel Acevedo, Fulton Houses resident association president, told the Times.

Another resident, Amelia Martinez, told the Times, "It's just money being cut up and thrown out. ... I'm so disgusted."

The city's proposed plan, leaked in April, would involve tearing down two of Fulton Houses smaller buildings and replacing them with mixed-income towers. Previously, the breakdown was reported to be 70 percent market rate and 30 percent at a rent affordable enough for public housing residents.

Residents from the two demolished buildings would be relocated to a building erected on the site of the new playground, according to the Times.

City officials have stressed residents will not be displaced, but rather, relocated. A mayoral spokeswoman previously told Patch all Fulton residents would get either a brand new apartment or renovated apartment under the plan, which is aimed to fund the $168 million in capital needs at the development.

Some 700 new units of housing would be built, and the money earned from the new towers would be used used to repair several others at Fulton Houses as well as Chelsea-Elliott Houses, the Times reported.

A spokeswoman for NYCHA told the Times the plan has not been finalized and a new playground could be incorporated into the design.

To read the full Times report, click here.