Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to walk away from a plan to build affordable housing on the site of a community garden in Lower Manhattan, according to two people familiar with the decision, handing a victory to some celebrities and other neighbors who had vigorously opposed the development.
The move is the latest twist in the protracted conflict over the garden, which over more than a decade has become an emblem of the tension between development and preservation in New York City.
Mr. Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, had been a stalwart supporter of the development on the one-acre site in NoLIta, which would have included 123 affordable homes for older people, along with green space. But last summer, he abruptly said he would abandon the plan and build housing elsewhere.
Last fall, shortly after Mr. Mamdani’s election, Mr. Adams’s first deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, had the property designated as “parkland,” a move that blocked the city’s development plans and could be reversed only by the State Legislature.
The developers on the project — Pennrose, Habitat for Humanity and RiseBoro — sued the city, calling Mr. Mastro’s move “unlawful” and saying they wanted to “prevent an outgoing administration from destroying an urgently needed affordable-housing project through an act of naked executive power.”
Mr. Mamdani’s administration has been in talks with the developers for months, and is expected to settle the lawsuit in the coming days, Gothamist reported on Tuesday. As part of the settlement, the city would agree to no longer pursue the development, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential settlement discussions.
It is not clear if Mr. Mamdani tried to get the state to reverse Mr. Mastro’s move. During the campaign, Mr. Mamdani told the news site Hell Gate that he would evict the Elizabeth Street Garden, the nonprofit tenant that occupies the site, during his first year in office.
Matthew Rauschenbach, a spokesman for the mayor, said the city was “continuing to work toward a resolution of the lawsuit initiated under the previous administration concerning the Elizabeth Street Garden site.” He added that the city was moving forward with another project to build 180 affordable homes nearby.
That site, at 22 Suffolk Street, had been presented by the Adams administration as an alternative to the Elizabeth Street Garden development.
The developers of the garden site did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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