Plan To Raze Elizabeth St. Garden Draws Crowd To Heated Meeting

SOHO, NY — At a heated two-hour Monday meeting, locals, city officials and developers sparred over a controversial affordable housing development that aims to bulldoze the Elizabeth Street Garden.

The project, Haven Green, will be erected by a trio of developers, Pennrose, RiseBoro and Habitat for Humanity New York City and bring 123 units of affordable senior housing to the area along with 6,600 square feet of garden space — shrinking the Elizabeth Street Garden's footprint from 20,000 square feet.

An additional 4,000 square feet will be devoted to commercial space and 11,000 square feet will go toward community facilities and offices for Habitat for Humanity New York City, according an architect for the project, who says the project was designed with the goal of marrying community needs.

“It provides a couple of things that the city drastically needs," said Matthew Melody, with Curtis + Ginsberg Architects. "We all know the city needs affordable housing, we all know that the city needs senior housing. It provides both of those in a very energy efficient building.”

But dozens of residents slammed the project Monday for looking to raze the Elizabeth Street Garden, one of the few green spaces in the area that has become a community hub, when there are vacant city-owned lots in the neighborhood.

“Why would you get rid of a stunning, much-used outdoor community center in a park starved neighborhood when right within the boundaries of the same community board there lies a city owned gravel strewn lot?" said Emily Hellstrom, with the Friends of Elizabeth Street Park group and a Soho resident since 1996. "We are all asking, why?”

City officials pushed back on the idea of simply building on another lot.

“For us this is not an either or question. It’s a both and [question]," said Leila Bozorg, a deputy commissioner with the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, at the Monday meeting. “Even if we were able to use that site, for us, it’s about meeting an affordability crisis that is not going to be solved by one or the other project but by trying to do affordable housing and open space in multiple projects.”

A small faction of locals expressed support for the project's affordable housing component and say loosing the garden is a trade off for housing that won't break the bank.

"We need affordable housing in this community desperately and the way I see it, this gives us a compromise between two things we sorely need: green space and cheap apartments," said Maya Clarkson, a resident of Little Italy since 1982 and who frequents the garden with pug, Leopold.

Come September the city will begin participatory design workshops, starting the week of Sept. 3, with another during the week of Sept. 10. The final design will be presented to the public on the week of Oct. 15.

Rendering credits: Curtis + Ginsberg Architects