[Photo from May via MoRUS]
The battle for the Children's Magical Garden continues.
Yesterday, Garden members filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court asking to be declared owners of the lot at 157 Norfolk St. at Stanton Street, according to Serena Solomon at DNAinfo.
Local residents established the garden back in 1983.
Per DNAinfo:
Garden members claim in the lawsuit that the New York State law of "adverse possession" makes them the rightful owners of the lot. Under the law, someone has the right to ownership if they have occupied a property for at least a 10-year period.
"We love the whole garden," said the garden's director Kate Temple-West. "We have been actively supporting the earth here for more than 30 years, for a very, very long time."
This story got particularly ugly back in May. Citing security and safety concerns, workers erected a fence on part of the property that developer Serge Hoyda owned, much to the dismay of residents, community activists and local poltiticians, who wanted to maintain the entire space as a community garden.
In late June, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development transferred ownership of the remaining section of the garden to the Parks Department to protect the parcel as park space. (Read more about this at DNAinfo.)
Earlier this year, Hoyda sold his parcel to a real-estate group, who want to build a six-story, six-unit residential building. According to the proposed work plans, the new building will measure 7,242 square feet and include a gym and a penthouse. The city disapproved the first round of plans last Wednesday.
Garden members are suing both Hoyda and the new owners, the Yonkers-based Horizon Group. Read a PDF of the complaint here.
Garden members are holding a press conference at the site this morning at 7:15.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Updated: Children’s Magical Garden under siege on the Lower East Side
Please post an update on the press conference. I really want to know if councilperson Chin show up, and if so, what side is she on?
ReplyDeleteI'd also appreciate if you could post any ways that community members can help the garden. I live nearby and really miss the garden being whole, not to mention that the local rat population has ballooned since Hoyda/Horizons have been neglecting the lot and letting hundreds of the furry guys set up camp there.
ReplyDeleteHi all - more updates on the press conference to come. Margaret Chin was not there. But the community was! Including local school principals, teachers, residents, and students.
ReplyDeleteWith spring on our door step, the garden will open its gates on March 20 for spring planting and welcome the community to help us keep up the fight against the rats - of all varieties!
Margaret Chin will doom this park as she has so many other community needs. The kids should be very worried.
ReplyDeletei live next door at 153
ReplyDeletewhile i would drastically prefer that this entire lot be kept as garden space, there really needs to be something done about the rat problem here.
it is rampant, disgusting, and ultimately unsafe if we're letting children play and garden on this lot.
every single night i see numerous rats scurrying from the trash on norfolk and into the fenced off portion of the garden. surely they infiltrate the entire garden space.
We know and agree about the rats, unfortunately, the developer who put the fence up creating the perfect place for the rats to fester. The garden was unable to continue the work we had previously done that had successfully and organically abated the rat problem last year due to the fence and imposed arrangement of the garden as it is now. Rats come out at night on the lower east side everywhere including the playgrounds where the school children play in the day time. They love empty lots and the lovely food trash that piles up in our neighborhood. Luckily, the garden has experience tackling this issue and once spring open hours start - we can start tackling it again!
ReplyDelete