Adams’ Lawless Blockade: Senior Housing Halted in Parkland Power Play

Paul Riverbank, 11/20/2025A fierce legal battle over Manhattan’s Elizabeth Street Garden pits affordable senior housing plans against preserving rare green space—raising profound questions about mayoral power, process, and the city’s priorities in the face of an enduring housing crisis. The court’s decision may set a powerful precedent.

Decisions about land in New York rarely arrive quietly. This latest squall began when developers, having spent almost a decade tangled in paperwork and public meetings, found their proposed senior housing project suddenly thrust into limbo. Mayor Eric Adams, alongside his first deputy, Randy Mastro, moved to reclassify the lot as parkland. Overnight, a corner of Little Italy that was supposed to help house vulnerable seniors—and, notably, dozens of older New Yorkers who have known homelessness—dropped out of the housing pipeline.

The about-face came as a shock. Up until recently, Adams had championed the new housing—a project promising 123 affordable units, about half for folks coming in from shelters. The public review, known in city parlance as ULURP, had already run its gantlet: community board voicing objections, council members hashing out compromises, endless hours of lawyerly back-and-forth. The city greenlit it. Yet with Mastro’s arrival at City Hall (himself no stranger to combative politics), the mayor’s stance slid. The project, for now, is on ice.

Developers, for their part, wasted no time filing suit. Their language is, if anything, unforgiving: City Hall, they argue, sidestepped rules that exist precisely to prevent “imperial” mayors from making off-the-cuff moves. No public notice, they say. No final record. No attempt to stick with the promised process. If this works, they warn, what separates a city code from a political whim?

City officials, meanwhile, are unmoved—at least publicly. Mastro calls the lawsuit “frivolous.” His pitch? Turning the lot into formal parkland means opening it up—less a quirky backyard for a non-profit, more a playground for the whole neighborhood. And, as if pre-empting immediate cries of “NIMBY,” he suggests that affordable housing can (eventually) go elsewhere: the city has three other lots in mind, all requiring their own protracted reviews.

If you sense a bit of gamesmanship in the timing, you’re not alone. With Adams preparing to leave office, the move neatly complicates things for his successor, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who’s already on-record pledging to restart the housing plan. The developers claim it’s a “last-ditch effort” to gift the site to local interests resistant to change—others, less generous, call it pure politics.

Local residents who’ve fought to preserve this green slice see things differently, of course. For them, bulldozers spell the end not just of flowers but of a rare, unplanned tradition in a city that often feels carved up by developers. One group dismissed the suit as a “misguided attempt” to dismiss years of grassroots work.

There’s no clear right answer here. New York, like many great cities, faces an unenviable calculus: whether to spend down its remaining green space for the cause of housing, or hold tight to what’s left and risk locking even more people out of a shot at affordable homes. You hear plenty of platitudes—about “balance,” about “best use”—but few seem to fully satisfy. What’s clear is that this court battle isn’t merely about a lot: It’s about how, and by whom, city decisions will be made in an era of acute scarcity.

Elizabeth Street Garden waits, caught between worlds. The courts will decide soon enough if Adams’ gambit survives scrutiny. The precedent, whichever way, will echo—far beyond this particular garden, and for years to come.

To step into Elizabeth Street Garden on a spring morning is to feel, fleetingly, that Manhattan can still surprise you. A patchwork of blooms, battered benches, and handmade signs, the garden sits in a city where open spaces often find themselves classified as “luxuries,” one step from history and two from the bulldozer. But lately it has been no simple refuge—more like the center of a storm.Decisions about land in New York rarely arrive quietly. This latest squall began when developers, having spent almost a decade tangled in paperwork and public meetings, found their proposed senior housing project suddenly thrust into limbo. Mayor Eric Adams, alongside his first deputy, Randy Mastro, moved to reclassify the lot as parkland. Overnight, a corner of Little Italy that was supposed to help house vulnerable seniors—and, notably, dozens of older New Yorkers who have known homelessness—dropped out of the housing pipeline.The about-face came as a shock. Up until recently, Adams had championed the new housing—a project promising 123 affordable units, about half for folks coming in from shelters. The public review, known in city parlance as ULURP, had already run its gantlet: community board voicing objections, council members hashing out compromises, endless hours of lawyerly back-and-forth. The city greenlit it. Yet with Mastro’s arrival at City Hall (himself no stranger to combative politics), the mayor’s stance slid. The project, for now, is on ice.Developers, for their part, wasted no time filing suit. Their language is, if anything, unforgiving: City Hall, they argue, sidestepped rules that exist precisely to prevent “imperial” mayors from making off-the-cuff moves. No public notice, they say. No final record. No attempt to stick with the promised process. If this works, they warn, what separates a city code from a political whim?City officials, meanwhile, are unmoved—at least publicly. Mastro calls the lawsuit “frivolous.” His pitch? Turning the lot into formal parkland means opening it up—less a quirky backyard for a non-profit, more a playground for the whole neighborhood. And, as if pre-empting immediate cries of “NIMBY,” he suggests that affordable housing can (eventually) go elsewhere: the city has three other lots in mind, all requiring their own protracted reviews.If you sense a bit of gamesmanship in the timing, you’re not alone. With Adams preparing to leave office, the move neatly complicates things for his successor, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who’s already on-record pledging to restart the housing plan. The developers claim it’s a “last-ditch effort” to gift the site to local interests resistant to change—others, less generous, call it pure politics.Local residents who’ve fought to preserve this green slice see things differently, of course. For them, bulldozers spell the end not just of flowers but of a rare, unplanned tradition in a city that often feels carved up by developers. One group dismissed the suit as a “misguided attempt” to dismiss years of grassroots work.There’s no clear right answer here. New York, like many great cities, faces an unenviable calculus: whether to spend down its remaining green space for the cause of housing, or hold tight to what’s left and risk locking even more people out of a shot at affordable homes. You hear plenty of platitudes—about “balance,” about “best use”—but few seem to fully satisfy. What’s clear is that this court battle isn’t merely about a lot: It’s about how, and by whom, city decisions will be made in an era of acute scarcity.Elizabeth Street Garden waits, caught between worlds. The courts will decide soon enough if Adams’ gambit survives scrutiny. The precedent, whichever way, will echo—far beyond this particular garden, and for years to come.