Celines Miranda was born and raised in the Elliott-Chelsea House on West 26th Street. She lives in an apartment with her elderly mother, who has grown disoriented by her surroundings. But now, Miranda — one of the vice presidents of the Chelsea Tenants Organization — is fighting to save the community that she grew up with.
“If we got a demolition here, and if she lives through it, she’s not gonna know where she’s at,” Miranda said in an interview with WSN. “She’s not gonna recognize her community, she’s not going to recognize her home.”
Her mother is one of many elderly residents at the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses, which are collectively home to about 5,000 people that have gotten caught in the middle of a yearslong public housing dispute. The developments face demolition by a New York City Housing Authority project — in partnership with Related Companies, one of the largest private landowners in the country, and Essence Development — to replace FEC Houses with predominantly private units. At a city Committee on Public Housing meeting in February, Miranda spoke on behalf of residents, where she noted that a petition against the demolition had garnered nearly 1,000 signatures.
In July, NYCHA gave some FEC residents a 90-day notice to vacate their homes, guaranteeing them the right to return to a “completed NYCHA replacement building” without a specified time frame. A separate NYCHA report estimated that the replacement buildings would be completed within eight years. While the vast majority of residents are not required to relocate during the redevelopment process, NYCHA sued at least nine senior residents last week who were told to vacate but remained in their apartments. Since then, a judge ruled in favor of two seniors, saying that the agency cannot force them to relocate — and residents continue to fight on against the proposed demolition.
Last week tenant organizers hosted a free screening of Natasha Florentino’s new documentary “A Home Worth Fighting For,” which follows a tenant group’s battle against the demolition of FEC Houses at the Communist Party USA headquarters in Chelsea. Florentino’s father, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, inherited her childhood apartment in the Upper West Side from his own father, from which her family was subsequently displaced when she was a teenager.
The experience inspired Florentino to learn more about city politics, and she has since been advocating for NYCHA housing justice issues for the last few years. She said that many U.S. cities have long supported the demolition of public housing for revitalization — New York, however, has historically resisted that approach.
“New York really stayed away from that,” Florentino told WSN. “So I was very shocked that [the demolition] was taking place, and I knew that it was important to document it. Because to me, it signaled a drastic shift in the way NYCHA was starting to view public housing.”
The move away from public housing to private management for FEC Houses began in 2019, when the de Blasio administration aimed to address the need for renovations in NYCHA buildings by partnering with private real estate developers. However, these proposals, in accordance with the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program, instead faced criticism for privatizing public housing and dissolving tentants’ protections — the set of laws that protect the rights of public housing tenants. This would leave residents under Section 8 housing, which no longer protects their right to rent at a fixed maximum of 30% of income and also requires tenants to pay utilities.
Public input on the demolition first occurred in 2023. Residents were surveyed on two options: the rehabilitation of apartments or the complete demolition and rebuilding of NYCHA homes, both of which involved the privatization of NYCHA housing. An option for housing to stay public was not listed.
Most respondents were in favor of the demolition, though the survey was only filled out by 30% of residents.
“If 70% did not participate, it’s not resident-led,” Miranda said. “This is what the developers want. This is what NYCHA wants. And they take it and run with it because they’re within their legal right to do so, but it is ethically wrong.”
Some residents argue that the NYCHA deal is harmful for both residents and the environment. FEC properties are home to 370 mature trees — demolition would mean cutting down the canopy, which provides shade and cleaner air not just for residents, but also the Chelsea neighborhood at large.
Saundrea Coleman, another longtime NYCHA resident and president of the Holmes-Isaac Coalition, believes the loss of trees in the area would only amplify the loss of life that would come with demolition.
“Are they really looking at the psychological impact, not just on the NYCHA residents, but the communities as a whole?” Coleman told WSN. “We need our trees, we need our spaces. We need the grass to still be green.”
FEC Tenants Against Demolition had sued NYCHA in October and is currently awaiting a Dec. 4 court date. In the meantime, residents and tenant organizers continue to collect signatures, rally against demolition and defend the future of public housing.
“There’s been this slow awakening throughout the Chelsea community that public housing is valuable,” Florentino said. “We don’t want to get rid of it. We don’t want this neighborhood to become for the extreme wealthy — we need to have this rich, diverse community to continue to thrive here.”
Contact Danica Guan at culture@nyunews.com
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