The New York City Housing Authority announced an historic plan Wednesday to tear down and rebuild two Manhattan complexes, the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses, in a $1.5 billion plan to revamp the crumbling public housing stock.
The decrepit, decades-old buildings of the two NYCHA complexes, both in Chelsea and containing 2,055 public housing apartments with 4,500 residents, will be replaced with brand-new NYCHA buildings. A far cry from the sorry state of NYCHA’s current housing stock, the new apartments will all have dishwashers, laundry machines, and heating and cooling controlled by residents.
The plan will also see the construction of 3,500 new apartments, with 875 set aside as affordable and the rest rented at market rates, along with ground-floor retail, grocery stores, community centers, healthcare facilities, and public space.
NYCHA claims the whole project can be done within six years, with the project spearheaded by two developers — Essence Development and the Related Companies, which were chosen by a committee of tenant leaders as the “PACT Partners” at the complexes.
The decision to tear down and rebuild the complexes was made by a vote among the residents of the building, NYCHA says, as part of the complex’s conversion to Section 8 housing under the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program. NYCHA says more than half of respondents — any resident over 18 was eligible to vote — chose the option to tear down and rebuild over rehabilitating the existing buildings.
“Our administration has always put residents front and center in decision-making, and I am excited that the residents of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses have seized their opportunity to plan their own future,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. “No one knows better than the residents what they and their neighbors need, and they were smart to recognize the potential benefits of completely rebuilding their campus.”
NYCHA says residents will…
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