Transplanting or Trespassing? Woman Arrested in Bulldozed Garden
by Steven Wishnia

In the latest skirmish over developer Donald Capoccia’s plans to destroy Lower East Side community gardens for costly condos and luxury housing, gardener Agi Groff was arrested Feb. 23 for trespassing on the site of the Chico Mendez garden, bulldozed Dec. 30.

Garden supporters say Groff was merely trying to retrieve some bulbs from her garden at the site. She was charged with criminal trespassing. After garden supporters protested outside Capoccia’s home, an East Third Street co-op, on Feb. 24, he threatened to have her arrested again for harassment. About 20 picketers came out again on Feb. 28. They stayed quiet to avoid any provocations, but handed out flyers calling Capoccia a greedy bully. “Our goal here is to get him to stop prosecuting Agi,” said demonstrator David Crane. “It’s totally unfair what he’s done.”

Capoccia, a leading illegal contributor to Mayor Giuliani’s campaign last year, plans to build expensive “middle-income” condos on the sites of the four gardens destroyed Dec. 30. He is also trying to take two Avenue C gardens for a development that would be 80% luxury housing. Lower East Side activists are also protesting the city’s plans to sell off 14 neighborhood lots, including the sites of three gardens, at an auction scheduled for March 19.

Under the “cross-subsidy” plan developed in the late ’80s, half the city-owned property on the Lower East Side, primarily abandoned buildings, was to be redeveloped as low-income housing, while the other half, primarily vacant lots, was to be auctioned off for luxury housing.

Neighborhood activists are now pushing for a moratorium on the sale of city-owned land in the neighborhood until there is a comprehensive plan to use them for low-income housing and green space.

For more information, call the Lower East Side Collective at (212) 774-4192, or contact HPD Deputy Commissioner Lori Fierstein (Division of Real Estate Services, Room 2053 South, 1 Centre St., New York, NY 10007; phone (212) 669-3884; fax 669-2666) and urge her to take the 14 lots off the auction block.