NYCHA Election Fight, Round Three
The insurgent candidate who won a four vote victory against the long time president of Elliott-Chelsea Houses says there is no reason for NYCHA to call a new election. The long-time president claims there was election fraud and is pushing for a re-vote. NYCHA has yet to certify the election.
Chelsea /
| 16 Jan 2025 | 06:01
The Spanish language flyer that is at the heart of the protest lists the election date as Jan. 3, instead of Jan. 2.
Longtime president of the Elliott-Chelsea Houses Tenants Association, Darlene Waters, claims there were election irregularities in the vote where she lost by a razor thin margin and wants NYCHA to call for a new election.
Renee Keitt, who distributed a flyer with the wrong election date to supporters, said it would be “absurd” to call a new election, since the Spanish language flyer with the wrong date went only to his supporters.
The insurgent candidate for tenant association president of the Elliott-Chelsea houses told the New York City Housing Authority it would be “absurd” to throw out her four-vote victory, as the incumbent has demanded.
The long-time incumbent, Darlene Waters, has asked for a new election on the grounds that her defeat by the insurgent, Renee Keitt, was tainted by some flyers from Keitt’s campaign that urged tenants to vote on the wrong date, thus suppressing the turnout.
But in a letter to NYCHA, Keitt’s lawyer, Charles Weinstock, characterized the wrong date as “a single clerical error in a small percentage of Ms Keitt’s campaign materials.” It was quickly corrected, and if it hurt any candidate, it was Keitt herself, Weinstock argued.
The dispute is of importance far beyond the 20-building low-income housing development in the west 20’s. When it was built in the 60’s and 70’s the project was crammed between the Hudson rail yards to the north, the deteriorating docklands to the west and the meatpacking district to the south, where meat was still packed.
But now it sits on some of the most valuable real estate on the planet, just east of the High Line.
The city wants to capture that value, and address the deteriorating condition of the Elliot-Chelsea Houses, by allowing private developers to demolish the complex and rebuild it as a mix of low, middle and upper income housing, cramming many more units in the same footprint.
Mayor Adams has said he would like this to be a model for repairing all the deteriorating public housing in New York and reduce the city’s profile as a landlord.
“This plan was always the dominant issue in the election,” Weinstock noted, “and Ms. Waters one of its most ardent supporters.” Keitt campaigned against the redevelopment.
The city and the developers, led by Related Companies, have said they believed they had strong tenant support. So, the defeat of Waters would be a setback for the plan, although how big a setback is uncertain.
“No doubt, Ms. Water is frustrated by her loss to Ms. Keitt,” Weinstock wrote to NYCHA. “But her argument–that a single clerical error in a small percentage of Ms. Keitt’s campaign materials, quickly corrected, constitutes ‘a deliberate effort to confuse voters’ and requires NYCHA to nullify her election victory–is absurd.”
The error was made by a third-party printer and the inaccurate flyers, in Spanish, were sent to residents that Keitt’s campaign viewed as likely to support her, Weinstock said.
“Ms. Waters provided no evidence that she was prejudiced by the error,” Weinstock argued. “The campaign distributed these cards to a list of residents who had recently signed a petition opposing NYCHA’s plan to demolish the Elliott-Chelsea Houses–in other words people who were already warmly disposed toward Ms. Keitt, who also opposed the demolition plan.”
Weinstock added: “It’s far more likely that the errors depressed the turnout for Ms. Keitt than Ms. Waters.”
The correct date for the vote was widely disseminated, including by the tenant association itself, Weinstock noted. “In addition,” he said, “just before the election, the Campaign made calls to the same residents it had given the uncorrected cards to–those who had signed the anti-demolition petition – and told them the correct day to vote.”
NYCHA delayed certification of Keitt’s victory after Waters protested. The Authority has given no timetable for how long their review of the challenge will take.
“NYCHA should reject the challenge,” Weinstock argued.
The city has said that all residents of Elliott-Chelsea Houses will be offered apartments in the new buildings. Most will be able to remain in their present apartments while the first of the new buildings are built, the city and the developers have said.
But Keitt argued that tenants were not well informed about the plan.
The city is facing a multi billion repair bill for all of public housing in New York, and Mayor Adams has presented the Elliott-Chelsea Houses redevelopment, which has a price tag of $1.9 billion, as a way to address that challenge in a way that the city can afford.