As NYCHA Plans Chelsea Tenant Relocations, Some Residents Ask: What Happens to a Community When You Move It?
Chelsea Addition is the first of 19 buildings slated to be demolished and replaced at the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses (FEC), part of a years-long, contentious redevelopment project meant to preserve the public housing complex in Manhattan’s wealthy Chelsea neighborhood.
While most of the roughly 3,400 FEC tenants will remain in their current homes as the replacement buildings are constructed, an estimated 120 households will be relocated to other buildings in the complex and moved back once new and modernized towers are completed.
Approximately 79 of the households being asked to move are seniors, many of whom contend the plan goes beyond four walls and a ceiling, but threatens the community and support networks that have sustained them through their later years.
"This is my family, now I have to move again," said one 80-year-old Chelsea Addition resident who moved to there four years ago, and says her neighbors are now her main source of support. "This one move to here, this one move to here, how can we connect?"
What's ahead this week in housing: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Sitings and Dispositions will meet Thursday regarding several land use applications, including the 'Just Home' project planned for the Bronx.
