Brewer Okays Affordable Senior Housing At Elizabeth Street Garden

LITTLE ITALY, NY — Borough President Gale Brewer recommended approval of Habitat for Humanity's 7-story affordable senior housing project, Haven Green, at the existing site of Elizabeth Street Garden on Tuesday.

The project, years in the making, will require razing the Elizabeth Street Garden to the outrage of many locals.

In partnership with Pennrose Properties and RiseBoro Community Partnership, Habitat will replace the garden with 123 units of low-income senior housing with some set aside for formerly homeless individuals. The open space on the site would be around one-quarter of the existing Elizabeth Street Garden.

Brewer's approval, which is advisory, had a few additional recommendations for the project leads, including increasing open space by about 30 percent — from 6,700 to over 8,000 square feet.

But, Brewer wrote: "This should be done in a way that does not compromise the number of affordable units currently planned for the site and does not require breaking the height cap of the special district."

"This may impact other uses and programming in the building, but must be considered as the need for open space in this area is critical," Brewer wrote.

Under the current plans, the units will be for tenants earning below 60 percent of area median income, which is currently $43,000 for one person, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development's AMI stats.

Thirty-seven units will be for formerly homeless individuals earning less than $22,000 a year.

An additional 4,000 square feet of the site will have commercial space and 11,000 square feet for community facilities and Habitat's offices.

Brewer also recommended ensuring the permanent affordability of the housing units, requiring community facility space to provide services in perpetuity, working out a formal agreement with the Parks Department to map the open space as parkland, and continuing community engagement.

Non-profit groups, including Elizabeth Street Garden and Friends of Elizabeth Street Garden, have been readying to sue over the project.

Friends' president Jeannine Kiely said to "stay-tuned" for a lawsuit soon on Wednesday.

"We're trying to save the entire garden," said Kiely, also a Community Board 2 member. "Friends of the Elizabeth Street Garden met with the Borough President a couple of weeks ago, and these recommendations are not a surprise."

The Friends group supports CB 2's resolution, which disapproved the Haven Green project in January and instead supported building affordable housing at a separate site at 388 Hudson St. where another city-owned empty lot is located — so long as the garden is untouched.

"I think the garden is an absolutely fabulous place," said Michael Gruen, Friends of Elizabeth Street Garden's lawyer. "It is a difficult problem to have to decide between a magnificent garden and housing for people who need it badly. But I think on that, one should try as best one possibly can to find a site that is more amenable to such housing and this is not, from my clients' point of view, a NIMBY [or Not-In-My-Backyard] matter."

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which is overseeing the project, has previously said if the site could be used at this time, both are being eyed for additional affordable housing to mitigate the city's affordability crisis. In 2016, Politico reported that over 100,000 people ages 62 and older were waiting an average of seven years for affordable apartments — an oft cited statistic for Haven Green project supporters.

The project is making its way through the uniform land use review procedure, which will end with City Council having a final vote in the coming months.