They aren’t letting their backyard down.
Organizers behind Nolita’s beloved Elizabeth Road Backyard are preventing to maintain the house open with simply days left till it’s evicted — however the metropolis isn’t budging but on its plan to plow it over for senior housing.
Backyard officers, whose supporters embrace actor Robert de Niro, are pushing embattled Mayor Eric Adams to contemplate two various areas to construct 123 models of reasonably priced senior housing because the clock ticks to Thursday.
“These sites could each provide 123+ units of affordable housing for seniors along with additional housing,” backyard officers stated of the proposal in a Saturday X submit. “This is a true win-win without any loss.”
The backyard lastly obtained its eviction discover earlier this month after greater than a decade-long battle with town and builders. A choose in the end dominated in opposition to the backyard in Could whereas it was interesting its 2021 eviction case.
Metropolis Council Member Christopher Marte advised The Publish he has been working with backyard officers for years to pinpoint various websites – equivalent to a Division of Environmental Safety water facility lot and a federal car parking zone – however none have been in a position to sway metropolis officers thus far.
“In the past year or so, the [Adams] administration has said, ‘we’ll just build on both public lots,’ even though there’s no longtime commitment to build on either of those lots,” Marte stated.
The newest plan to save lots of the backyard consists of two non-public tons that the “city can’t build on themselves,” Marte stated, with two present buildings and considerably extra housing and retail house than at the moment proposed.
The homeowners of each the buildings are already “on board” with the proposal, the backyard’s govt director Joseph Reiver advised The Publish – because the backyard braces for its eviction this week.
“While they [the Adams administration] remain open to discussing the sites, they’ve also continued with the eviction,” Reiver stated. “It’s a bit of a mixed message they’re sending us.”
However “we’re not packing up,” he added.
Backyard advocates have been in “waiting mode” Tuesday as town weighs the choice plan – but it surely received’t be the reply they’re on the lookout for until Mayor Eric Adams has a sudden change of coronary heart.
Throughout a Sept. 3 information convention, Adams famous reasonably priced housing shall be constructed anyplace town can safe it.
“When we talk about housing, people often say, ‘well why don’t you move it down the block?’ And I keep trying to tell people I need that property down the block too,” the mayor stated. “I have the city agencies doing analysis of every piece of real estate we have that we can build on top of.”
Celebrities like de Niro, Patti Smith and Martin Scorsese have rallied behind the backyard within the months main as much as this week’s eviction, in addition to neighboring college kids and seniors who would qualify for the deliberate reasonably priced housing. The 33-year-old backyard itself boasts over 200,000 annual guests, plus lots of of free public applications and over 20,000 sq. ft of coveted Manhattan inexperienced house.
Reiver stated the backyard has been “going back and forth [with the Adams administration] for over a month, and that officials were open to having a conversation about alternative sites for the affordable housing development.”
He added that town’s messaging has been “misleading” over its portrayal of how a lot seniors need the event – pointing to the greater than 123 seniors who penned a letter in help of the backyard this summer time – and the open house that the Haven Inexperienced plan would create in lieu of the Elizabeth Road Backyard.
“They’ve been saying the Haven Green development provides 16,000 square feet of [publicly accessible] open space, which is not true,” he stated. “They’re using the private courtyard next door to inflate those numbers … They’re destroying the entire garden and building on about 70% of the lot and incorporating use of the private courtyard next door.”
The chief director added that the backyard intends to discover “every” authorized choice doable ought to the proposal fall via.
Within the meantime, Marte stated he hopes town considers the over 990,000 petition signatures despatched to the Adams administration, in addition to the 1000’s of letters in protest from locals and neighboring schoolchildren.
“I don’t see how this administration can reject this offer in good faith,” Marte stated. “That is our cultural heart in Little Italy and we don’t have the inexperienced house that others take without any consideration.
“This community garden means the world to the constituents and to the city,” he added. “we will be losing a lot if the city moves through with this.”
