May 9, 2025
Statement on Potential Pause to Haven Green
Statement on Potential Pause to Haven Green.
The Haven Green development team and supporters are deeply disappointed in recent news stories regarding a potential pause in the twelve-year-long effort to build deeply affordable housing for vulnerable and homeless seniors alongside 16,000 square feet of publicly accessible green space in a community that has seen very little affordable housing built in decades.
The affordable housing community, including non-profit partners, invest years of time and resources into the predevelopment work that feeds the city’s pipeline, based on good faith commitment and support. While we have not been informed directly by the City of any change in strategy, a pause after six years of delays and litigation would set a dangerous precedent and undermine the foundational public-private partnerships required to address our City’s most pressing housing needs.
It is critical that Haven Green be allowed to advance despite ongoing efforts by well-housed private interests – including wealthy celebrities and neighboring property-owners. Any backing down to self-interested opposition would be seen as an open door to those most effectively able to fund and elevate a coordinated Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY) campaign.
The development team, alongside all of those allied organizations and advocates against homelessness and for housing justice that have stood with us through years of struggle to serve those in greatest need, call on City Hall to reject NIMBY opposition and keep its commitment to build 123 affordable homes alongside publicly accessible green space.
This is not an us versus them, housing versus garden story, but rather an opportunity for a thoughtful development strategy to address the pressing need for both affordable housing and open space.
We remain willing and able to partner with the local gardeners to recreate and reestablish the space they’ve grown to love since housing was proposed, but reject any strategy that does not include desperately needed housing for our most at-risk neighbors.