Developers Fume As Advocates Rejoice Over Plan to Save Elizabeth St. Garden

Council Member Christopher Marte pushed back after developers say they consider filing a lawsuit against the city over their now-lost affordable housing project planned for the site that is home to the community sculpture garden in Little Italy, known as Elizabeth Street Garden.

“It’s no surprise that the developers of Haven Green are upset that we’re saving the garden they wanted to destroy, and building five times more affordable housing that will be permanently affordable, unlike their proposal.” Marte told Straus News in a statement on Friday.

In June, Mayor Adams announced that the city was not evicting Elizabeth Street Garden to make room for the affordable housing project called Haven Green, which was to be built by three developers: Pennrose, RiseBoro Community Partnership and Habitat for Humanity.

The city, which owns the lot where the garden is located, had previously promised the 20,000 square feet of prime downtown real estate to the three developers in return for their pledge to build a 123-unit affordable rental apartment complex for senior citizens and a public park, while also renting to retail stores to cross-finance the affordability.

After a years-long court battle, which the city won against the nonprofit organization that runs Elizabeth Street garden, Haven Green anticipated to close financing in December 2025, begin construction in 2026 and cut the ribbon in 2027.

But Joseph Reiver, the head of the garden’s nonprofit, who is also the son of Allen Reiver, an art and antiques dealer, who created the space in the early 1990s, together with Marte, whose district covers most of downtown Manhattan, continued to fight, and after months of negotiations presented the city with alternative sites which offered five times the amount of affordable housing units.

While the original proposal would have created 123 units of affordable homes, the new agreement promises 620 homes across three sites, all located within Marte’s district, one of which requires the approval for rezoning.

Randy Mastro, the deputy mayor, who brokered the new agreement, told Crain’s New York Business recently that if Marte’s rezoning plans are not approved, the city could reconsider the Haven Green project.

Maestro also said that he understands the developers’ “disappointment,” but that the Adams administration is “producing more affordable housing units than any administration in history.”

The developers said they feel betrayed. Speaking to Crain’s, the CEO of the region’s Habitat for Humanity affiliate, one of the development team’s partners, Sabrina Lippman said, “I think what they did undermines what the City of Yes is all about... And it sets a really dangerous precedent for other affordable housing developers.”

According to the Haven Green website, the developers were selected to build the $88 million housing complex by the city in 2017, and spent the last eight years getting community board approvals and fighting legal battles.

Crain’s also reported that the developers are not ruling out “suing the city” for abandoning their project.

“It shows they only ever had their profits, not the interests of the community or our affordability crisis, at heart–otherwise they’d be recognizing this announcement as a win-win.” Marte pushed back in his statement on July 18.

“We spent months working on the viability of the new housing sites and expect the related zoning actions to begin shortly. Anyone who’s looking to disrupt the 600 new affordable housing units just for the sake of destroying a community garden should be ashamed of themselves.”

But Lipman argued that the city’s need for housing is so massive, telling Crain’s there are currently 200,000 low-income seniors on a wait list, that Elizabeth Street Garden site is also needed to fix the crises.

“Instead of a scarcity mindset, why not think in abundance, which would be possible with this project?” Lipman said.

When Straus News visited the garden over the weekend, volunteers were picking plums from the plum tree, one of several fruit trees in the garden.

“We have at least five fruit trees,” one of the volunteers, Madison Lakin, 22, told Straus News on Saturday. “Plums, figs, service berries, cherries, mulberries, and a vine of blackberries.”

Lakin said she comes to the garden because she feels a sense of community here, “it feels like a home away from home.”

Over one million people had written letters to Mayor Adams begging him to save the garden, including celebrities like the actor Robert DeNiro, the director Martin Scorsese and singer and poet Patti Smith.

“I hope the city’s decision wasn’t based on a celebrity tweetstorm,” Lippman told Crain’s.

But the celebrities were not alone in their plea, seniors from the neighborhood, public school children and over 300 local businesses and organizations also sent open letters to the mayor.

“You don’t have to lose this garden at all, or any green space, in order to get affordable housing,” Reiver told Straus News on Saturday. He described the accusation that his organization was against affordable housing a “false narrative.”

“No one was ever against housing.” Reiver said, “it was just about achieving affordable housing in the neighborhood without losing green space.”

Reiver, then, attturned his ention to helping a visitor, who had been playing a ball game, retrieve his ball from the roof of the iron gazebo, which was acquired by Reiver’s late father in early 1990s and now serves at the stage for poetry readings, concerts and movie nights.

The new agreement requires that the garden is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

In a statement to Straus News, Rebecca Lee, a media spokeswoman for Habitat NYC and Westchester, said, “The development team has no further comment at this time, but we remain committed to working closely with HPD to create critical housing opportunities for low-income New Yorkers.”