Tom Duane, August 3, 2026

Pursuant to HUD’s Annual Plan requirements, I submit this formal challenge to the Draft NYCHA Annual Plan. I request that this challenge, its source, and NYCHA’s complete written response be attached to the final Annual Plan, as required by federal law.

My name is Tom Duane. I am a former NYC Council Member (1992-1998) and former New York State Senator (1999-2012),  and I  represented the residents of the Fulton Houses and the Elliott-Chelsea Houses while in office. I also represented other NYCHA developments and their residents, at various times and in various neighborhoods while in elected office.

I want to strongly voice my absolute opposition to this planned demolition of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses, and the displacement–and destruction!–of a vital community.

I want to share with you some of my history and my experience representing the residents of NYCHA developments, including and especially Elliott-Chelsea and Addition Houses, and Fulton Houses, so that you can understand that I have some standing and knowledge of this crucial issue, and why I feel so strongly about it.

I was, before being elected and while in Public Office, dedicated to protecting and improving the lives and living conditions in each and every building in every NYCHA community I ever represented, and that personal dedication remains today. However, for the purposes of this document, I shall be specifically addressing issues regarding the Elliott-Chelsea Houses and the Fulton Houses, unless otherwise noted.

My history of involvement and activism with the NYCHA developments publicly began when I worked, along with other members of an organization that was and is historic, in that it was the first of its kind: The Chelsea Gay Association (CGA). It was a non-political, neighborhood-based group of people, with a membership composed of Gay Men, Lesbians, Bisexual people and allies.

In 1977, I organized and chaired a forum sponsored and attended by members of CGA, along with representatives from local law enforcement (the Tenth Precinct) and the leadership of the Fulton Houses Tenants Association. We addressed the issue of violent bias crimes being perpetrated by local young men, mostly, but not only, Irish American and living in the Fulton Houses or friends of residents. These young men committed these crimes frequently against Gay Men, who were targeted while walking west to establishments specifically catering to the wider Gay Community. As a result of this forum, these bias crimes ended and a stronger relationship developed among these diverse groups.

It is important to note that there were and still are many members of the LGBTQIA+ (Queer) community who are open about their identity living in Chelsea’s NYCHA homes. And there was and still is a diverse Queer community who are not open about this part of their lives. This is as normal within NYCHA as it is throughout other parts of our Chelsea neighborhood and society in general.

I also served on my local Community Board as an openly Gay member along with  leaders and residents of NYCHA houses. In addition, I was the Democratic District leader for the neighborhood, which obviously included NYCHA residents, from 1982-1988.

My experience has shown me what happens when people, even those who don’t live in NYCHA housing, are for whatever reason forced to leave their apartments. Sometimes  the owners would say it was to renovate the apartments. But 9 times out of 10, that family never got to move back into their apartment, and they lost their home, and we lost them from the neighborhood. And now NYCHA is perpetrating a very similar displacement of our neighbors.

So with regard to this plan:

What was originally and formally agreed upon and asked for by the community was renovation of existing housing. There was never an acceptable plan or intention to demolish these buildings entertained or supported by NYCHA residents or neighbors residing throughout the greater Chelsea neighborhood.

And NYCHA is being shamefully complacent in that it is institutionally acting just like those devious private landlords when they tell someone, “Oh, just leave your apartment because we’re going to renovate it, and you’ll get to live in your same, but improved apartment, there or possibly elsewhere for the same rent and with the same regulations and protections.” Now, if you believe that, as they say, I have a bridge I can sell you.

As part of “The Chelsea Plan” which I helped create and write, and eventually usher into existence successfully while serving as a member of the City Council, the neighborhood was promised construction of low income housing on a city-owned and unused plot of land on 20th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. If you need further information on this matter, I can supply it, but for the purposes of this document, the back story is not as important as the fact of the all too-often broken promise of new low-income housing. We can’t let that happen here.

In my experience, as an elected official and as a community activist working on housing issues, many, many times I have seen that demolition of a building leads to displacement of residents and displaced people rarely are able to live, not just in the location where their building had been, but anywhere in the neighborhood.

Demolition, which was NEVER envisioned, ALWAYS  leads to displacement. And the Elliott-Chelsea and Fulton Houses, which are communities in and of themselves, have always been part of the greater Chelsea neighborhood. We are one neighborhood. I am determined to fight to make sure that people who live in our neighborhood’s NYCHA homes are able to remain in their homes.

Fulton Houses and Elliot-Chelsea houses are simple, sophisticated and safe and are interdependent thriving communities with the surrounding neighborhood. The people who live in NYCHA apartments are also an important, beloved group of neighbors who make our Chelsea neighborhood special and a wonderful place to become friends, shop together, attend school together and live together in harmony, familiarity, comfort and safety.

In the early 1990’s, former Borough President Ruth Messinger and I funded a renovation of Chelsea Park. This newly renovated and improved park included a new playground, handball courts, benches, beautiful new trees and more welcoming entrances. In addition, our funds were used to create a large, beautiful playing field for all kinds of sports and which was encircled by a spacious running track. An important element of the design included the use, for the first time in any New York City Park, of “Astroturf” (a word no longer much in use) being used on the large playing field. The entire Chelsea community now uses this space for all kinds of sports. The field is adjacent to the Hudson Guild/Senior Housing building within the Elliott-Chelsea campus and children, teens and adults from every block throughout Chelsea play on this field. This is just one example of how Chelsea, including NYCHA, Penn South, London Terrace, lower Chelsea, Loft residents, etc. gather together, play together and live together in an amazing, wonderful neighborhood.

And your plan envisions the destruction of our beautiful, all-purpose, well-used Chelsea Park! Shame!

The idea that residents of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses would want to leave their apartments, lose the protections of Section 9, and then be provided only with the less protective, tenuous Section 8, is absurd.

*Here’s the reality of your plan: What is really happening is NYCHA is selling its view of the Hudson, and Related is buying it. It’s a real estate deal, plain and simple, that entirely leaves regular New Yorkers out of the equation.*

The idea that people would give up living among the relatives and friends and community members that have been in their lives, in most cases, for decades, not just in the NYCHA development but throughout Chelsea, is absolutely absurd.

I would not tell any of you who are members of the NYCHA board that you should leave your apartment and that I could promise you something better. And if I did, would you believe me? No, I think not. But you’re doing that to a tremendous number of working-class New Yorkers, telling them that they don’t really belong where they live, but promising that at some undetermined (I say undetermined, because I am keeping it real) point in the future they will be able to live in a better apartment in the same neighborhood.

Members of the board, to be blunt–you are responsible for creating a situation that is similar to what happened to the African American community in the Greenwood District of Tulsa. Your plan will make happen to what  happened to the African American community who lived in an integrated (including the members of its government) of the City of  Wilmington, North Carolina, which had been the largest city in North Carolina.

In both cases when those neighborhoods were rebuilt, whether in Greenwood or in the neighborhoods of Wilmington, very few of the original residents got to live there again. There are numerous other examples–sundown laws throughout the country which made it illegal for Black, Latino, Asian or Native American people, or people of any non-white background, to be on their streets after sunset. Chinatown in San Francisco was created because Chinese San Franciscans were not allowed to live almost anywhere else in that City. Working-class and largely non-white residents of our communities are rarely able to return to rebuilt neighborhoods that have been demolished or destroyed. This cannot and must not happen in Chelsea as it has, shamefully, happened in so many other places in America.

Let’s just look at a  recent New York City displacement, an example of inadequate opportunity for re-population by displaced people and families: in the Seward Park neighborhood, 2000 residents and 400 businesses were displaced.

Only a tiny percentage of these residents survived the demolition and displacement and were able to return to the neighborhood they were forced to vacate, to move back into apartment that had been promised decades ago

Members of the NYCHA board, if you have lived in New York City for a while, you must remember that for years and years, while Sheldon Silver was the Speaker of the Assembly, though acres and acres of land had been cleared of buildings where people lived–hardworking, low- and moderate-income people–the entire time that Sheldon Silver was in the Assembly, absolutely no development happened on those acres. The displaced former residents remained displaced until very recently when a few people and families claimed their promised apartments.

And the other thing that’s a disgrace is that you’re permitting the creation of three buildings that are essentially permanently completely “poor door” residential buildings. You are going to be responsible for the continuation and expansion of one of the absolutely most discriminatory housing policies to have ever been implemented in New York City, and one which, at least while I was in office, I did not permit to be part of any development.

You are segregating low-income families into three permanently populated “poor door” buildings. This is disgraceful and should be ILLEGAL!

The proposed demolition of the Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses is not preservation. It is the destruction of public housing, the removal of homes from Section 9 traditional public housing, and the transfer of control to private development and management interests.

And NYCHA, your own plan is riddled with contradictions.

Residents should not be forced to pay more because NYCHA has chosen to remove their homes from Section 9 and convert them to Project-Based Section 8. Nor should NYCHA be permitted to market this loss of legal status, subsidy structure, and public control as though nothing meaningful will change.

The Draft Annual Plan conceals a major loss of public housing capacity. NYCHA has repeatedly promised one-for-one replacement by apartment count and publishes tables showing no change in the number of apartments by bedroom size. But the approved Phase I RAD Conversion Commitments tell a different story. Fulton Phase I loses 150 bedrooms, while Elliott-Chelsea Phase I loses another 100 bedrooms. That is 250 bedrooms erased in the first phase alone. NYCHA, you’re counting apartment doors while hiding the disappearance of family-sized housing.

The plan manipulates the history of resident participation. It invokes the Resident Review Committee’s earlier selection of a development partner in a way that suggests residents approved the current demolition scheme. They did not. The partner was selected before wholesale demolition was decided. A process that began as rehabilitation cannot be retroactively presented as consent to raze the campuses.

The Draft Annual Plan further claims that resident rights and protections will be maintained, while admitting that conversion will likely increase what tenants pay in rent and utilities. The increase will be phased in over five years. A phased-in rent increase is still a rent increase.

As part of this coalition, I also denounce the environmental danger of carrying out mass demolition and excavation on occupied campuses where soil contamination and other hazards have been identified. The proposal threatens to expose residents, workers, children, seniors, and neighbors to contaminated dust and toxic materials over years of construction.

NYCHA has not earned the public’s trust or support. You have not provided a transparent, credible, and enforceable plan showing how residents will be protected from contaminated soil, airborne toxins, construction hazards, and prolonged exposure.

The coalition is demanding that NYCHA:

• Stop the demolition of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea.

• Preserve Section 9 public housing.

• Reject privatization.

• Fund full rehabilitation of the existing buildings.

• Release all environmental and soil-testing records.

• Protect residents from displacement, rent increases, toxic exposure, and years of construction disruption.

Public housing residents are not an obstacle to be removed. Their homes are not vacant land. Their rights are not bargaining chips. Their health is not an acceptable cost of redevelopment.

The necessary solution is clear: repair public housing, do not demolish it; protect residents, do not privatize their homes; and stop calling destruction preservation.

NYCHA–DO THE RIGHT THING! Fund and repair, DON’T demolish! Thank you.

Sincerely,

Former New York State Senator Tom Duane