Developers sue to block Adams’ Elizabeth Street Garden parkland bid

The developers who are proposing to build an affordable housing development over the Elizabeth Street Garden sued Mayor Eric Adams’ administration on Wednesday to stop his bid to permanently dedicate the site as parkland.

The case challenges the Adams administration’s “last-minute, unilateral attempt” to stop future development at the site under incoming Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who had promised to advance the project.

In early November, Adams’ commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services Louis Molina announced the city’s decision to designate the Nolita community garden as government-owned parkland. The lawsuit argues the move subverted the city’s land use process “entirely and illegally,” according to the complaint filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The lawsuit pushes forward a decade-plus struggle to build affordable housing for seniors in the site, and is aimed at clearing a path for Mamdani to make good on his pledge to proceed with the development.

The parkland proclamation was issued early in November, according to a letter from Molina sent to the city’s parks department commissioner shortly after Madani’s election.

The developers of the proposed Haven Green project who make up the plaintiffs — Pennrose NY Developer LLC, Habitat for Humanity New York City and Westchester County, and Riseboro Community Partnership — are seeking to appeal the city’s action and seek an injunction against such a dedication under Adams.

“Petitioners bring this action to restore the integrity of the land-use process, to vindicate the rule of law, and to prevent an outgoing administration from destroying an urgently needed affordable-housing project through an act of naked executive power,” reads the complaint.

If Mamdani were to try to advance the development after the parkland designation, he would need to seek approval from the state legislature.

In the suit, the petitioners allege that Adams’ First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro pushed the parkland plan out of “a decades-long and friendly relationship with Norman Siegel,” the attorney representing the garden’s advocates.

Mastro has insisted that the plan is part of a “win-win” agreement he arranged with local Councilmember Christopher Marte that stopped the development in the garden in exchange for rezoning other sites that could result in more than 620 affordable housing units.

City Hall said that it was in negotiations with the Haven Green developers on one of those alternative sites and the lawsuit came as a surprise.

“It is unfortunate that these developers have now brought a frivolous lawsuit to try to leverage a better deal in negotiations with the city,” Mastro said in a statement. “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.”

Last week, Mamdani addressed Adams’ decision to dedicate the space parkland by saying it was “no surprise that Mayor Adams is using his final weeks and months to cement a legacy of dysfunction and inconsistency.”