Affordable Housing or Green Space? The Ongoing Battle Over the Elizabeth Street Garden
Joseph Reiver has always appeared in something green, even before he became the director of Elizabeth Street Garden in 2019. Working in the garden daily, he wears a forest-green shirt as merchandise, an olive scarf in freezing winters, or an emerald jacket at crowded rallies.
A half-acre lot in Nolita, the garden operates as a volunteer-based nonprofit, ESG Inc. and hosts free public events. On breezy summer nights, locals and tourists gather for poetry readings and movie screenings. On crisp fall mornings, group yoga and tai chi kick off the weekends. Vines wind around classical sculptures. Leaves shimmer in balmy sunlight.
Reiver swings open the gate at 11 AM. Next to the gate hangs a poster that reads “URGENT” in vivid red, warning the imminent threat of the garden being replaced by an affordable housing project. Tall and slim at 31, Reiver wears a man bun and beard. Surrounded by “Save the Garden” signs, he resembles the lion head on ESG’s logo, whose mane flows into swirling leaves.
Like a lion, Reiver guards the urban oasis with deep conviction. Yet, the city sees the garden’s potential to fulfill other needs. Both committed to serving the neighborhood, they have been engaging in a decade-long battle, still ongoing.
His father, Allan Reiver, commenced a monthly lease for this city-owned lot in 1990. Running an antique store next door, the elder Reiver transformed the unkempt, vacant land into a garden to display his sculptures. Many still grace the garden, from two marble sphinx gazing into each other’s eyes to a bronze Boy with Thorn attentively picking his sole at the corner.
Allan Reiver died in May 2021. By then, Joseph Reiver had already left his acting career to spearhead ESG full-time, carrying on his father’s legacy as another chip on his shoulder. “I knew that I had to be the one to do it,” he said, calmly. “It defines me in every way.”
But activism is never easy: The city still owns the garden site and wants to build affordable housing on it. The plan, proposed in 2012, calls for a seven-story mixed-use building, with 123 units of senior housing and ground-floor retail. Hugged by boutiques on Elizabeth Street, Prince Street, and Spring Street, the garden welcomes and soothes visitors. Yet in this neighborhood, there remains residents aching for a home. About 5,000 seniors are on waitlists for affordable housing, a fraction of the city’s total of 200,000.
It was District 1 City Council member Margaret Chin who initiated the housing plan. “The need for these senior housing units in the heart of Little Italy is overwhelming,” she stated in a press release. Aware of the local controversy, Chin wrote in a 2016 op-ed, “In my heart, I know that this is the correct decision. Because for me, leadership isn’t about always doing what is popular, but what is right.”
“Of course, we are for affordable housing. Everybody is for affordable housing,” said Julia Kramer, 26, a volunteer at ESG. She comes to the garden twice every week, knitting hats that she intends to sell as handicrafts and finding a community among the garden supporters. To Kramer, what puts her off is the city’s unnecessarily reductionist narrative, forcing a choice between affordable housing and green space.
As a solution, the garden proposed alternative locations for senior housing, such as 388 Hudson Street—a vacant lot, also owned by the city, with the capacity to accommodate three times the number of affordable units than the ESG site. The city claimed that, rather than alternatives, only “additional” sites should be considered. Reiver feels indignant that the city neglected the garden’s proposal for eight years. “Only just last year did they say, ‘Oh, we’ll seriously consider it,’ which proves us right,” he said. But building housing elsewhere hardly solves ESG’s own crisis. The city wants its 123 units on Elizabeth Street, period.
Reiver lives on the same block as the garden, coming and going several times a day, often sitting by a table piled with garden merchandise and a donation box. Sometimes, multiple volunteers show up, chatting cheerfully and answering visitors’ questions. Other times, especially on quieter days, Reiver sits alone. During his estimated 40 weekly hours of voluntary work devoted to the garden, he oversees daily operations, hosts events, and applies for grants. Last year, ESG received $258,345 in contributions, according to its 990 form. Reiver himself is a volunteer. “All the money goes to our legal fund,” he said.
In March 2019, ESG filed a lawsuit against the City of New York and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. A few weeks later, the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) for the senior housing project concluded, wrapping up the final step for the city to approve the development. Community Board 2 advised saving the garden, but the City Council, which has the final say, voted unanimously (45-0) in favor of the development. In a world with no objection, the procedure would smoothly proceed to Penrose Properties and Habitat NYC, two developers approved by New York’s Housing Preservation and Development, to begin construction.
But the lawsuit complicated matters. In November 2022, ESG won the lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, but when the city appealed, the Appellate Division ruled against the garden last June with a unanimous 5-0 vote.
This was a “shock” to ESG’s lawyer, Norman Siegel. He was especially frustrated when the judge asked, “Do we really have to discuss climate change with environmental laws?” Of course, he thought to himself. Siegel also found it ridiculous that the judges considered “the presence of Washington Square Park immediately outside the study area” a sufficient substitute for the loss of Elizabeth Street Garden. The walk between these two sites takes 16 minutes.
In September 2023, the highest court in the state, the Court of Appeals, agreed to take the case—a victory for the garden. Historically, fewer than five percent of appeals advance to that level. Dissatisfied with the Department of City Planning’s environmental assessment, which found no significant impact in removing the garden, ESG requested the city to issue an environmental impact statement. If approved by the court, the statement would serve as a legal premise for land development, ordering a more public and thorough investigation into the garden’s environmental role. In the most recent brief, Siegel writes, “How could climate change not be a factor when you’re talking about the environment?”
ESG’s other main argument centers on community engagement. Green, open spaces are particularly rare in Lower Manhattan. “We host free, public events more than any other community garden in New York,” said Reiver. On a recent Sunday afternoon, more than 80 people were present in the garden at the same time, chatting, eating, going on dates, walking dogs, or simply wandering. Counting event participants, ESG estimates that more than 200,000 visit the garden throughout the year.
For the garden, the question is not a matter of affordable housing versus green space—not so binary, black-and-white. “It’s not really a true narrative but one sold by the developers,” said Reiver. For the ESG allies, there exists a win-win solution: Why can’t we build housing somewhere else while preserving Elizabeth Street Garden simultaneously? But for the city, the question becomes: Why can’t we have all of ESG and other sites for as much affordable housing as possible?
These two rationales seem to only clash, then escalate over time, with no middle ground. Reiver reveals that the lawsuit is consuming most of his time, as well as all the garden’s funds and resources. Oftentimes, he can be spotted sitting on a bench, legs crossed, engrossed in his phone, communicating about the case. Despite contemplating alternative plans for the worst scenarios, Reiver is determined to win the lawsuit. “It’ll be a very hard thing to deal with, so our climb will be harder,” he said. “But we’ve been climbing and doing this effort for 10 years. We’re fighting.”
