Adams Sued for Blocking Elizabeth Street Garden Development

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) illegally blocked the development of affordable senior housing in Lower Manhattan, the developers of the project say in a new lawsuit.

Adams’ decision to declare Elizabeth Street Garden, a community green space and sculpture garden in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood, as government-owned parkland subverted “the City’s robust democratic process governing land use,” says the complaint filed Wednesday in the New York County Supreme Court.

It also prevents Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D) from fulfilling his promise of evicting the garden to move forward with the Haven Green project, a mixed-use building with 123 affordable apartments for low-income and formerly homeless seniors.

The decision went into effect Nov. 3, according to a letter Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Louis A. Molina sent to the head of the city’s parks department on Nov. 6, two days after Mamdani was elected mayor.

The project’s sponsors—Pennrose NY Developer LLC, Habitat for Humanity New York City and Westchester County, and Riseboro Community Partnership—claim the decision was facilitated by First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro in an attempt “to deliver by unlawful fiat an unearned victory to the well-heeled private interests” that have been fighting the project through the courts since 2019.

The Haven Green Project has gone through full environmental review and approval by the state and city, it was certified and reviewed through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, and went through months of public hearings before being approved by the City Council in June 2019.

The Adams administration didn’t follow any of those procedures before dedicating the land as a public park and transferring management from the city’s housing and preservation agency to the parks department, the complaint says.

The “abrupt and unilateral dedication also constitutes arbitrary and capricious action because it represents an unexplained and irrational reversal of the City’s longstanding and repeatedly articulated position supporting the Haven Green project,” the complaint says.

“It is unfortunate that these developers have now brought a frivolous lawsuit to try to leverage a better deal in negotiations with the city,” Mastro said in a statement. “The city has followed all proper procedures to designate this site as parkland, and this is a meritless lawsuit that does not have New Yorkers’ best interest in mind.”

Cozen O’Connor represents Pennrose, Hogan Lovells represents Habitat for Humanity, and Perkins Coie LLP represents Riseboro.

The case is Pennrose NY Dev. LLC v. The City of New York, N.Y. Sup. Ct., docket number unavailable, complaint 11/19/25.