It may be little, but it’s not going down without a fight.
Manhattan Community Board 2 voted last week to deny an application to build a development on Elizabeth Street Garden, a quaint, 1-acre plot that makes up one of the last remaining open green spaces in Nolita.
The garden has occupied the area on Elizabeth St. between Prince and Spring Sts. for nearly 200 years. It was once a public school’s recreational space, and has since evolved into a popular venue for weddings, art installations and celebrity sightings.
Last year, the Department of Planning of Housing Preservation and Development issued environmental approvals for a project, dubbed Haven Green, scheduled to break ground on the lot this summer. The development would replace the open space with 123 affordable housing units for seniors.
But those approvals were given by way of an Environmental Assessment Statement and a so-called negative declaration statement, which allowed HPD to bypass a more thorough Environmental Impact Statement.
Supporters of the garden, which included musician David Bowie, among many others, launched a legal campaign to stop the construction, arguing that the development could be built on a larger site less than a mile away at 388 Hudson St.
“This is classic government pitting community against community,” said Norman Siegel, the attorney representing supporters of the garden. “We can and must have open green space and affordable housing.”
Siegel said that the city is not following its own rules, and the move simply takes city property and gives it to a private developer.
The development has been backed by Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who included the site as an addition to the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area on the Lower East Side in 2012.
“Haven Green will create green space that will be open to the public on a consistent basis with access from Elizabeth and Mott streets,” Chin said in a statement last year. “It will also create more than 100 units of desperately needed housing for the over 200,000 seniors who are currently languishing on waitlists. Additionally, the more than 100 units will be marketed, with the assistance of Advocacy & Services for LGBT Elders (SAGE), specifically towards LGBTIQ seniors.”
The Community Board’s vote is merely advisory and non-binding, but the development will also be reviewed by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and the city’s Planning Commission before reaching the City Council for a vote.
Advocates of the garden have an uphill battle ahead of them — the City Council typically defers land use decisions to local members.
“We have to explain to City Council members that this garden is not only relevant to C.B. 2, but also the entire city and throughout the country,” Siegel said.
