The Elizabeth Street Garden’s lesson

The battle on Elizabeth Street Garden has been raging for more than a decade. The neighbors consider that the garden is a local treasure. Housing defenders see it as a leading place to build affordable houses.

To put an end to this apparently insoluble fight, it would take a solution that serves the interests of both parties, producing the affordable accommodation of the needs of our city and saving this open space that neighbors love. Now the mayor Adams has done that exactly.

The Adams administration presented a resolution which preserves this beloved garden in a region which largely lacks a park, while, at the same time, creating more than five times the quantity of affordable housing in this district that it was initially envisaged on the garden site.

This is how the government should work: collect people to find solutions that work for everyone.

Here is how it happened: when the mayor announced my appointment as the first deputy mayor earlier this spring, the member of the municipal council Christopher Marte contacted the future of the garden. Marte was one of the many in this downtown district which were passionate about saving it. But housing defenders were just as passionate about wanting to see more affordable housing in this area, especially for the elderly.

Marte had voted against the historic legislation of the Adams administration “City of Yes” in December which rezoned the whole city to create more than 80,000 new affordable housing units.

We told him that if he intended to convince us to keep the garden, he should accept rezoning in his district which create hundreds of units more affordable than the 123 provided for the garden. Since the New York City Council reaches the members of the local council on the rezons in their districts, its support was crucial because without the support of Marte, we could not rezon specific sites of its district to create a more affordable accommodation.

By working together in the past two months, however, we have obtained a remarkable result. In exchange for the preservation of the garden, Marte accepted three rezonings specific to the site authorizing hundreds of additional affordable housing that could otherwise have been built without rezoning.

By virtue of this agreement, Marte agreed to rezer a lot on Bowery, a pâté of house houses, to add 123 new affordable houses for the elderly, ensuring that we build the same amount of senior affordable housing that were to be built on the garden. Marte also agreed to rezon another site nearby at 22, rue Suffolk to create a development of 200 units of all affordable housing.

And after originally opposing it, Marte has now agreed to support an Adams administration priority for Rezone 100 Gold St. to create 1,000 new houses, at least 300 of which will be affordable accommodation.

Once these three sites are rezoned, they will produce more than 620 affordable dwellings that could not have been built there. In other words, thanks to this constructive partnership, we will create more than five times the affordable housing that initially envisaged on the garden site alone.

Elizabeth Street Garden will remain a community garden, will remain open to the public more hours a day than ever before, and will potentially become a city park if we choose thus. He’s a winner-winner for everyone.

So, why some affordable housing defenders, including former city officials, Carl Weisbrod and Alicia Glen, criticized this possibility last month before any agreement was concluded? They see the garden as a symbol to fight; But we see it as an opportunity to take advantage of the construction of more affordable housing than others thought it possible.

We are proud to be the most caused administration in the history of the city. Mayor Adams has created more affordable accommodation than any of his predecessors. Thanks to Rezonings, the mayor has created more than 130,000 new affordable houses. It is more housing created in less than three and a half years than the Bill mayors of Blasio and Mike Bloomberg created for two decades.

What we did here to advance the affordable housing in order of magnitude that if we had just followed what these administrations planned to do with this site. We did it while thinking outside the box to create even more affordable accommodation.

To be really effective in government, you must have a head and a heart. You have to listen to communities. You must serve the public. This is why it is called the public service. You must bring together games to get even better results. You need an open mind and an open heart. And this is what Adams and this administration have in abundance.

Mastro is the first deputy mayor of New York.