NYCHA planned to start Chelsea demolition by end of year. Then came the holdouts.

The New York City Housing Authority has just five weeks to stay on schedule with its sweeping redevelopment plan for the Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan.

The city plans to replace the aging public housing complex with new buildings for existing public housing residents, plus several thousand more affordable and market-rate units.

Demolition was slated to start on the first of two buildings before the end of this year, but the project now faces legal hurdles — and pressure from some elected officials — after some residents have refused to leave.

New York Attorney General Letitia James and several state and federal lawmakers sent a letter to city housing officials last week requesting they pause the project until the start of the new year to give residents more time to understand the changes to their new lease agreements.

The letter’s authors also want the residents who are refusing to relocate to have more time to hire legal representation through the city’s Right to Counsel program, which provides lawyers to anyone in housing court.

“Tenants need further engagement and education on this issue and should not have to spend Thanksgiving or the December holidays trying to understand how to navigate a complicated process,” the elected officials wrote in their letter.

Andrew Sklar, a spokesperson for NYCHA, said the agency will not pause the redevelopment. He said housing officials have been in “active communication” with residents since the project's inception in 2019.

“Residents have waited years for the redevelopment of their campuses to begin,” Sklar said in an emailed statement. He added that NYCHA will continue working with residents and lawmakers to support residents.

Residents at the Chelsea Addition, a seniors-only building on the sprawling public housing complex, began receiving notices to vacate in July. The holdouts make up a minority of the elderly tenants. Most have already agreed to relocate.

Earlier this month, a state judge denied NYCHA the authority to relocate two tenants. The letter requests that NYCHA wait until the tenants obtain legal representation through the city’s Right to Counsel program before continuing its effort to relocate them. In a separate lawsuit, a group of residents, including the resident association for the Elliott-Chelsea Houses, is arguing that the demolition of their complex was planned without sufficient public input.

“People feel threatened,” said Visnja Vujica, an attorney representing the Elliott-Chelsea Houses Resident Association in its lawsuit against NYCHA. “They haven’t been able to sleep and are feeling increasing anxiety.”

NYCHA filed its own lawsuits against 14 tenants who refused to relocate. In two of the tenants’ cases, Judge Emily Morales-Minerva ruled that NYCHA has no authority to relocate them to renovated apartments and recommended taking them to housing court. However, different judges sided with the housing authority in the other 12 cases.

While NYCHA officials declined to comment on pending legal matters, a spokesperson for the agency said that 89 of the 111 households have already agreed to move and that “a number” of tenants have already moved.

Ultimately, the entirety of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses, which house a total of 4,500 New Yorkers in 2,056 apartments, is set to be demolished and redeveloped. The new complex will include 1,000 affordable units and 2,500 market-rate apartments. The city expects construction to take three to four years.

According to the plan, most tenants will be allowed to stay in their current apartments while the new public housing units are being built. Their old homes will only be demolished after they move to make way for additional housing.

Residents in just two buildings, including the seniors at Chelsea Addition, have to leave their apartments before their new ones are constructed.

NYCHA and its contracted developer for the project, Essence, are providing temporary housing for those tenants while the new development is being built. Current tenants have also been guaranteed units once the project is complete.

Deborah Cruz, 72, moved out of the Chelsea Addition in September to an adjacent building on the same block. She said NYCHA provided relocation assistance. Her new apartment is a recently renovated unit with a new stove and refrigerator.

She said she’s accustomed to moving frequently, but she said she recognizes that some residents were reluctant to leave their homes for the demolition.

“I understand how they feel, losing a place where you have memories,” Cruz said. “But Chelsea is changing.”

According to NYCHA’s website, a 2023 survey of the residents found that 57% of respondents said they preferred new construction rather than a renovation. Renee Keitt, the president of the tenants association for the Elliott-Chelsea Houses, said the survey did not make it clear that there would be a demolition.

The resident association’s lawsuit argues that the NYCHA project was not approved through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, a process that allows for input from members of the public and elected officials before major changes to city property.

Only about 29% of residents responded to the 2023 survey. Keitt said a formal land-use review process will allow more tenants to have their voices heard.

A previous lawsuit in October was thrown out by a judge after he discovered that the advocates who drafted the lawsuit had used AI to generate case law that does not exist.

John Low-Beer, the former attorney who signed onto the case after it was filed, said the judge overreacted and that the central arguments surrounding ULURP were valid.

“Pause it and let's have a proper public review from all interested parties,” said Low-Beer, who is representing a group of tenants in the case. “And then we can decide whether or not it should happen.”