East Village residents lose bid to stop new NYC homeless shelter in their neighborhood
Concerned East Village residents lost their bid Wednesday to stop the Mamdani administration from relocating hundreds of homeless men into their neighborhood.
A Manhattan judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking to block the city from opening a new intake center for single adult men on East Third Street.
“There is no legal basis to find that [the city’s] decision to relocate the intake center to East Third Street was made in violation of law or in an arbitrary and capricious manner,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Sabrina Kraus ruled.
The plaintiffs, a neighborhood group known as VOICE (Village Organization for the Integrity of Community Engagement), sued in April, arguing the city rushed the project and bypassed required hearings and public review.
Kraus, who had previously delayed the center’s opening, said she understood residents’ concerns, including their frustration at not having a chance to be heard on an issue that could change the character of the block and neighborhood.
However, she found VOICE failed to identify any mandatory factor that would have required the city to undergo a land-use review process.
At a hearing last month, VOICE attorney Randy Mastro said the city had already spent $1.3 million renovating the city-owned building selected for the intake center, which once housed a notoriously dangerous and rundown men’s shelter in the 1980s.
Calling the project a “major capital project” and “major change in use,” Mastro argued it would have enormous community impacts.
But Kraus ultimately ruled the relocation and renovations were not substantial enough to trigger review requirements, noting that no new certificate of occupancy was needed.
