The Architects Newspaper, Viren Brambatt, Sept 7, 2025

City and federal officials say there’s no choice but to seek “creative” solutions to the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) alleged $78 billion funding deficit. Chief among them is RAD/PACT (Rental Assistance Demonstration/Permanent Affordability Commitment Together), a program that shifts the management of public housing into the hands of private or nonprofit developers. Supporters frame it as a lifeline. Critics say it’s privatization by design.

Nowhere is this tension more visible than in the proposed demolition and redevelopment of the Fulton, Elliott, and Chelsea Houses (FEC), a flagship RAD/PACT project in Manhattan’s West Chelsea neighborhood that dates back to 2019, and has since undergone myriad controversial revisions. The latest design—by Related Companies, Essence, Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), COOKFOX, and ILA—has ignited fierce backlash from residents, housing scholars, and community advocates.

Renee Keitt, Elliott-Chelsea Houses Tenant Association president, and Layla Law-Gisiko, a district leader in Assembly District 75, recently spoke on NY1 about how elderly FEC residents have been issued 90-day notices to vacate their homes. With its soaring towers, full demolition of NYCHA buildings, and a unit mix dominated by market-rate apartments, the plan is seen by many as a top-down development strategy dressed up as revitalization.

According to the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) shared this June, the penultimate FEC proposal touts 20 percent affordable housing, a staggering drop in relation to previous iterations, and towers that nearly double the heights of the original proposal. While officials point to upgrades, rent protections, and the promise of “right to return,” the underlying RAD/PACT structure tells another story—one of displacement, land extraction, and public-to-private transfer.

What is happening at Fulton, Elliott, and Chelsea is not just about three campuses, however. It’s about the future of public housing in New York—and by extension, the future of the city itself.

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