Elizabeth Street Garden Developers Sue City Over Parkland Designation

NEW YORK CITY — Housing developers who had planned to build affordable housing on the lot that houses the Elizabeth Street Garden have sued Mayor Eric Adams’ administration after it designated the garden as parkland.

Developers behind the proposed Haven Green project, Pennrose, RiseBoro Community Partnership and Habitat for Humanity New York City and Westchester, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan supreme court on Wednesday.

They are seeking to overturn the administration's parkland decision and argue they subverted the city's land use process “entirely and illegally,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit claims that First Deputy Randy Mastro was influenced by his "decades-long relationship" with Norman Siegel, a lawyer representing advocates for the garden, to go ahead with the parkland plan.

"This proceeding arises from an extraordinary act of executive overreach: a last-minute, unilateral attempt by Mayor Eric Adams and his senior aides, in the waning days of their administration, to nullify more than a decade of public process, democratic decision-making, and lawful land-use approvals in order to reward political allies and entrench a favored constituency,” the developers contend in the suit.

Mastro in a statement to Patch said that the administration is committed to ensuring Elizabeth Street Garden remains a "beloved community park."

"Designating this space as parkland will make the park fully accessible to the public while also allowing us to allocate Parks Department resources to the garden. It is unfortunate that these developers have now brought a frivolous lawsuit to try to leverage a better deal in negotiations with the city," he added. "The city has followed all proper procedures to designate this site as parkland, and this is a meritless lawsuit that does not have New Yorkers' best interest in mind.”

The parkland designation was first disclosed in a Nov. 3 letter from Department of Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Louis Molina.

“By this notice, the City unequivocally and permanently dedicates this property to public use as parkland,” Molina wrote in the letter.

In June, Adams announced a new plan that would preserve the existing garden and relocates affordable housing nearby. He had been initially been supportive of a plan to building 123 apartments at the site before changing course.

In an agreement with Council member Christopher Marte, the city would abandon redevelopment plans for the garden and instead look to rezoning three sites in District 1 to create 620 affordable apartments.

156-166 Bowery, 22 Suffolk St. and 100 Gold St. have been chosen as the sites for the new affordable apartments.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has said in multiple interviews that he would look to evict the garden when he took office. The parkland designation would complicate those efforts.

Any development on parkland would require approval by the state legislature under a process known as alienation.

The garden has faced a years-long eviction battle. Multiple celebrities including Robert De Niro and Patti Smith called for the garden to be saved, while housing advocates want more senior affordable apartments.