Working with private sector developers, the Housing Authority plans to take down 18 buildings in three developments — the Fulton, Elliott and Chelsea Houses — and replace them with six towers that will house the 2,056 tenants who live there now. Nine more buildings will be built at the site that will include 1,000 permanently affordable units and another 2,500 market-rate apartments NYCHA says make the project financially feasible.

To pull off this transformation, NYCHA is requiring tenants at two of the buildings set for demolition first — one of the Fulton Houses buildings, known as Fulton 11, and a seniors-only development called Chelsea Addition — to relocate until the demolition and rebuilding of the first new tower is complete. That is expected to take three years.

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As of this week, 73 households in the targeted buildings have already relocated to other buildings within the three developments, but a handful in both Fulton 11 and Chelsea Addition have vowed to stay put amid a bitter legal battle.

Two weeks ago the Housing Authority began notifying holdouts that officials have started the process of terminating their leases through an internal system that doesn’t include an independent court.

One of the six households has since acquiesced and agreed to move. Another tenant has unrelated issues involving alleged nonpayment of back rent. But four households are now facing eviction simply on the grounds of “failure to transfer.”

“If you relocate, that charge against your tenancy will be withdrawn,” the letter reads.

Twenty-four households at Chelsea Addition have sued, alleging the Housing Authority is employing harassment to force them to move out of a seniors-only building into a less secure development that isn’t dedicated to seniors. Their cases are currently pending in housing court.

In response to questions, NYCHA spokesperson Matthew Horgan said all of the Fulton 11 tenants were “offered at least two different temporary apartments that fit their household’s needs.” Five of the six were offered units within other Fulton buildings, while one was offered an apartment in nearby Elliott-Chelsea.

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“These households have been offered new apartments in the community but have failed to relocate, which is a breach of the rules in their leases. That is what triggered these notices,” Horgan said.

One of the families that got a termination letter has lived at Fulton 11 since the 1960s. Jonathan Santiago, 37, who described himself as a third-generation Fulton resident, lives there with his mother, Lourdes Ortiz, 61, who grew up and met her husband there. His father’s family had lived in another Fulton building for years.

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