You can\u2019t park here!\u00a0<\/p>\n
The dismayed developers of the Elizabeth Street Garden<\/a> site are crying foul at the city\u2019s move to declare the space as parkland,<\/a> calling it \u201can act of naked executive power.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n The suit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, says that the move violates city charter rules for changes to the City Map, and seeks a restraining order to block the last-ditch effort made during Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 lame duck era to halt the 123-unit senior housing project<\/a>. <\/p>\n Developers are suing the city over Mayor Adams\u2019 \u201clawless\u201d last-ditch effort to prevent the development of the Elizabeth Street Garden site by declaring it parkland earlier this month. Stephen Yang for the New York Post<\/p>\n \u201cIt is unfortunate that these developers have now brought a frivolous lawsuit to try to leverage a better deal in negotiations with the city,\u201d First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro said to The Post. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n Adams\u2019 parkland maneuver is viewed as a move to stymie Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani\u2019s pledge to move the decade-long project on city-owned land<\/a> forward.<\/p>\n The move \u201cfundamentally undermines the integrity of the city\u2019s established land-use approval process,\u201d the suit claims, and could threaten future projects if the laws governing land use can be \u201cdisregarded and displaced by political convenience and preference.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Haven Green project went through, and complied with, everything the law requires,\u201d the developers argue of the planned 123 affordable unit building<\/a> \u2014 with 40 percent reserved for formerly homeless seniors.<\/p>\n In June, Adams \u2014 who had spent most of his time in office using city resources to fight lawsuits blocking the pending senior housing development \u2014 changed his tune, and announced that the garden\u2019s development would be paused<\/a>, with three other sites of city-owned land serving as alternatives.<\/p>\n Despite the celebrity outpouring of support for the Elizabeth Street Garden, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani \u2013 who pledged to move the development forward \u2013 carried the Nolita district by a 16-point margin. Stephen Yang for the New York Post<\/p>\n But the announcement contained a caveat, noting that the housing switcheroo would only take place if the three sites could pass zoning changes via the lengthy city review process known as ULURP.\u00a0<\/p>\n Adams\u2019 end-run to suddenly \u201cpermanently dedicate this property to public use as parkland\u201d violates that nascent deal, the suit argues.<\/p>\n \u201cThe attempted designation was taken without authority, without public notice, without going through the ULURP process, without an administrative record, and without a single legal justification in violation of the administration\u2019s own five-month-old deal to leave the door open to developing the site in the future should additional sites not be fully realized,\u201d the developers said in a statement.<\/p>\n The suit was filed Wednesday by developers of the 123-unit affordable senior housing project, Pennrose, Habitat for Humanity and Riseboro, JHVEPhoto \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n A city hall spokesperson claimed that ULURP would only be triggered if selling land, but the park designation is only a transfer from one agency to another.<\/p>\n When asked for an update on the developers at the three alternative sites, city hall only confirmed that the Haven Green developers were in advanced negotiations over a Suffolk Street site, which could support up to 200 units alone, calling the lawsuit a surprise.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is unfortunate that these developers have now brought a frivolous lawsuit to try to leverage a better deal in negotiations with the city,\u201d First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro said to The Post.<\/p>\n Reps for the developers did not respond with a request to respond to City Hall\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n The suit paints a picture suggesting that developers would be reluctant to sign on to any future development of city land if the laws governing land use can be \u201cdisregarded and displaced by political convenience and preference.\u201d Stephen Yang for the New York Post<\/p>\n The group currently operating the garden space called the suit \u201ca misguided attempt to overturn a lawful and long-overdue action by the City of New York to protect one of the last remaining green spaces in our neighborhood,\u201d according to Gothamist.<\/p>\n Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced during his campaign that he would reverse Adams\u2019 about-face, and pursue the originally approved Haven Green project<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite the celebrity outpouring<\/a> of support<\/a> for the Elizabeth Street Garden \u2014 which the lawsuit says was off-limits to the public for years until the city announced plans for development in 2013 \u2014 Mamdani carried the Nolita district where the garden is by a 16-point margin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can\u2019t park here!\u00a0 The dismayed developers of the Elizabeth Street Garden site are crying foul at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[81,22070,2850,4327,57,9,24,55,54,56,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-45357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-eric-adams","9":"tag-gardens","10":"tag-lawsuits","11":"tag-manhattan-supreme-court","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-city-news","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}