"Strategies like this Land Lease plan are vital to improving the circumstances of NYCHA's residents and buildings and ensuring that quality public housing is available to New Yorkers who need it most," housing-authority spokeswoman Sheila Stainback wrote in a statement. "
Residents say they are worried the developments will displace community centers and parking lots around the public-housing buildings. Others say luxury apartments will cause further gentrification and ignite development that will change their neighborhoods. Under the lease plan, 20% of the new apartments would be set aside for low-income residents—which advocates say is too few.
"You're going to have these luxury housing units that will block our light, take away our trees and our playgrounds and our parks," said Carmen Negron, a Lower East Side resident of the Baruch Houses. The president of Douglass Houses Resident Association says tenants are worried about losing a valuable community center.
The city says it has no intentions to demolish community centers—although many would be moved—and that residents who now hold parking passes will have new spaces allocated to them after construction is completed.
Still, the Bloomberg administration cites the value of the city-owned land, and insists that the plan to generate money makes economic sense.
