RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC. Gothamist Listen Live Donate News The long battle over Elizabeth Street Garden is over. Mamdani touts new housing plan. By David Brand Published Aug 13, 2026 at 6:53 p.m. ET
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The Elizabeth Street Garden is no longer a battlefield.
A team of developers picked to build low-income senior housing atop the lushly green, statue-strewn lot in Lower Manhattan has officially dropped a lawsuit it filed against the city for abruptly canceling the decade-old plan.
The move on Thursday, first reported by Gothamist, ends a long, bitter dispute that pitted pro-development advocates , who highlighted the dire consequences of the affordable housing shortage, against supporters of the Elizabeth Street Garden who sought to preserve the unique green space.
Former Mayor Eric Adams killed the housing project and spared the garden shortly before leaving office last year, prompting the lawsuit from a development team composed of the company Pennrose and nonprofits Habitat for Humanity and Riseboro.
In exchange for dropping the lawsuit, the city granted the developers the rights to build new housing on a vacant, publicly owned lot at 22 Suffolk St. on the Lower East Side.
The proposed project will include more than 180 new units, with 120 reserved for low-income seniors, according to City Hall. The remaining units will be reserved for low-income tenants.
The fight over the lot, once used to store and display sculptures for a nearby vendor, dates back to 2013 and became emblematic of broader debates over housing development and policy.
Members of an ascendant “Yes In My Backyard” — or YIMBY — movement had pressed to raze the lot and construct the 123-unit project known as Haven Green. They had the backing of several local elected officials.
But the garden’s supporters, including everyday New Yorkers and A-list celebrities like Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Patti Smith, rallied to keep the site intact.
For years, housing proponents and the project's development team seemed to win the day. The city prevailed in multiple lawsuits meant to stop the housing plan and Adams publicly defended the garden’s demise early in his tenure.
But in June 2025, Adams abruptly reversed course. He and his top deputy, Randy Mastro, announced the city would cancel the project and look for other lots to build housing at some undetermined time. Adams later transferred control of Elizabeth Street Garden to the parks department and deemed the lot parkland.
The sudden decision became a campaign issue in the race to oust Adams, with then-candidate Zohran Mamdani pledging to evict the garden and build new housing if elected.
Mamdani officially backed off the promise this week. At an unrelated press conference on Wednesday, Mamdani told reporters his hands were tied by the parkland designation, which would require state legislation to undo.
“Those actions made it nearly impossible for us to move forward,” Mamdani said.
In a written statement, City Hall spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach said the Mamdani administration was “grateful” that the developers agreed to drop the lawsuit.
“For years, seniors and local community members have fought for housing at the Elizabeth Street Garden, and that is why we are committed to delivering urgently needed housing at the other sites in Lower Manhattan as quickly as possible,” he added.
Last year, city officials also proposed new affordable apartments on a lot on Bowery Street and at the current location of the city’s housing agency at 100 Gold St., but there is no clear timeline for development at either location.
In a written statement, development team spokesperson Emily White said the new arrangement “creates much-needed affordable homes for low-income seniors as quickly as possible."
"Our work has always been about preserving Elizabeth Street Garden while addressing the need for low-income housing within our community,” said Joseph Reiver, the executive director of the group that maintains the site. “For years, we've maintained that the need for public community greenspace and affordable housing can be met without any loss to the community, which is the kind of resolution all New Yorkers deserve."
Councilmember Chris Marte called the decision a “true win-win for Lower Manhattan” because it spares the garden while eventually adding new housing elsewhere.
But the outcome has faced condemnation from housing proponents, including Marte’s predecessor, Margaret Chin, who helped navigate the project through the city’s complicated land-use review process. In a post on X Tuesday , Chin called Adams’ decision to kill the plan a “crime.”
“Mayor Mamdani must keep his promise of building affordable senior housing on the ESG site!” she wrote.
The lot at 22 Suffolk St., a narrow, nearly block-long strip between Grand and Broome streets, is located next to an earlier Lower East Side mega-development called Essex Crossing and was initially considered for a school.
Housing experts say the lot is still years away from development. Rauschenbach, the City Hall spokesperson, said the land use review process for the site will likely begin by mid-2027. Work on the Haven Green development, which would have replaced Elizabeth Street Garden, could have begun as soon as the city evicted the garden.
The housing development advocacy group Open New York also panned the death of a project that had survived public review and multiple lawsuits before Adams abruptly nixed it.
“The Adams administration used the machinery of c...
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