Save this garden & build more housing

Our district has a rare and valuable opportunity: to address the urgent need for affordable housing in our district while also preserving the cherished Elizabeth Street Garden, a vital community space.

Once Elizabeth Street Garden is gone, it will be gone forever. The city will never be able to recreate a space like this. Choosing to sacrifice this irreplaceable garden for housing, especially when empty lots and buildings sit unused just around the corner, would be a senseless tragedy for all New Yorkers.

Our community has consistently advocated for the construction of affordable housing at city-owned lots identified by Community Board 2 in 2015. Unlike the garden, these sites are either vacant or parking lots. Among the suggestions was 388 Hudson St. From 2015 until 2021, the city dismissed this site and failed to give it serious consideration. Because of the Community Board and garden’s relentless advocacy, plans have finally begun to develop housing.

This advocacy shows that building new affordable housing does not have to come at the expense of destroying gardens. It also highlights the city’s unwillingness to work together — as they claim to want to build on Elizabeth Street Garden, and the other sites the community identified. The other major contender as an alternative site — 2 Howard St. — remains a nearly vacant law enforcement parking lot.

We must address the city’s affordability crisis, but New Yorkers deserve so much more than just a roof over our heads. A rapidly warming planet and a mental health crisis exacerbated by COVID-19 underscores the need for green spaces like Elizabeth Street Garden — abundant with life for both plants and people. The city’s insistence on developing both the alternative sites and the garden ignores the invaluable role the garden plays for the people who rely on it.

The hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who have visited Elizabeth Street Garden know that it’s much more than just a generic open space; it’s a true community green space and work of art, free and open to all, in an area where nearby parks are predominantly pavement. It hosts hundreds of free public programs, such as tai chi, poetry readings, yoga, and movie screenings.

The garden also provides an immersive classroom for Chinatown public school students to get their hands dirty and learn about gardening. There are far too few public spaces in the city — especially in Lower Manhattan — that provide such a service.

Support letters from thousands of people, local students, a collective of 130-plus seniors (many of whom qualify for affordable housing), and more than 250 local businesses and organizations, have been sent to Mayor Adams and First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer. These voices deserve to be heard.

And so we have brought a new deal to the table — to show the administration that if they are serious about building on every public site, then we should go further and bring affordable housing to privately owned sites.

Upon request from both the mayor and Torres-Springer to find more alternatives, we identified empty buildings within the district that the city was previously unaware of. We’ve initiated discussions with these property owners working out possibilities that would provide a minimum of 123 affordable housing units for seniors at each location, alongside additional housing. Two sites are ready and willing to collaborate, and with support from my office, the land-use process could easily be streamlined and new housing could be built just blocks away from the garden.

The urgency to save this rare green space is as important as the need to build new affordable housing. A community of thousands stands united, waiting for the mayor’s office to join us at the table.

Meanwhile, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the developers have exaggerated the amount of open space included in the development plan (which is approximately 6,700 square feet as required by zoning). They’ve gone so far as to include a private courtyard for affordable housing units directly adjacent to the garden as part of their “open space” figure. What’s more, the building’s tenants, many of whom are seniors, were never consulted about whether they were comfortable with the courtyard being used this way.

The mayor and the first deputy mayor have the power to stop the eviction at any time. They can work with the community to find a viable alternative solution — one that does not involve sacrificing the garden and results in even more housing for those who need it most.

Marte represents Chinatown and the Lower East Side in the City Council.