Letter from CPC to WEACT in response to its 8/10 letter to Lee Bollinger

Subject: Letter from CPC to WEACT in response to its 8/10 letter to Lee Bollinger
Date: 10/18/2004 11:33:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: BFrappy24
To: BFrappy24


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COALITION TO PRESERVE COMMUNITY -
United for an Open and Strong Community
POST OFFICE BOX 50 - Manhattanville Station
365 West 125th Street
NEW York City, New York 10027
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Coalition to Preserve Community Steering Committee

Peggy Shepard
Executive Director - WEACT

Cecil Corbin-Mark
Director - WEACT

Oct. 12, 2004
Dear Ms. Shepard and Mr. Corbin-Mark,

This letter is in response to your August 20th letter to Columbia President Lee Bollinger in which you invite the university to join with other "stakeholders" and "key organizations" in a "convening effort" for a planning process on development in West Harlem. You offered Mr. Bollinger your services in this regard, stating that "WE ACT is prepared to provide leadership toward this end."

Your letter stated that the university expansion plan in West Harlem is progressing "without a broad based community planning process". This analysis presented by WE ACT undermines the intense effort behind a remarkably broad based planning process at Community Board 9 - the development of the 197-A Plan - over the past two years.

Under Section 197-A of the New York City Charter, community boards are charged with the legal mandate to sponsor plans for the "development, growth and improvement" of their neighborhoods with respect to land use and zoning. Furthermore, all 197-A plans have to undergo an extensive public review process before being finalized, a process that entails approval by the City Planning Commission and subsequent adoption by the City Council. Indeed, this is the process that is currently being undertaken by Community Board 9 through its 197-A Plan. The planning debate about Columbia's announced expansion plans as well as other matters related to land use has occurred at the board and at numerous public meetings throughout West Harlem. We have a strong 197-A document because of community participation and there is no need to create a substitute for it now.

You stated in your letter that you were a participant on Columbia University's self- appointed Community Advisory Committee (CAC). At the time of its formation, the CPC widely circulated its message that this committee be opened up. We demanded the inclusion of excluded members of the community - especially tenant rights advocates, community employment advocates, and those with a history of battling gentrification and large scale development. The CAC did not hold a single public meeting with the community, nor did we hear of any public statements from WEACT supporting the call to open up CAC to those who had been so obviously excluded from participation.

CB 9 on the other hand, aside from its normal business, regularly holds public sessions related to the University's expansion plan. Its committees meet monthly and afford the community an ongoing and consistent opportunity to address zoning issues (the Manhattanville Task Force), waterfront and economic development (the Harlem Piers committee), housing and land use (the Housing committee), and board 9 development issues of all kinds (the 197A Committee). It is through this planning process that a true broad-based community has had an opportunity to voice its vision for community development and give input as recognized stakeholders. The success of this process is evident in the large turnout of local residents and small business owners from throughout Community District 9 - both in these committee meetings as well as the public sessions of the CB 9 monthly meetings. The sharp and challenging discourse which has taken place between community members and representatives from Columbia, City Planning, the Economic Development Corp, HPD, and elected officials is a testament to the liveliness and the broad range of perspectives inside our West Harlem community.

We find it extremely disappointing that those few members of the CAC whom you referred to as having taken issue at the outset with Columbia's lack of transparency in the formation of the CAC (and its inadequate commitment of resources to produce an independent and accountable process) failed to voice their misgivings to the community earlier.

Your accurate criticism that "Columbia has replicated the folly of many developers of presenting 'mature' plans and then seeking community input" is unfortunately absent in CAC's final report. Nor is it expressed on WEACT's website, in your newspaper, or in any publicly released statements by WEACT.

It is clear to our coalition that there is no need for the creation of some alternative planning charette. The 197-A process has created a strong and vibrant plan which defends our community and has a sensible plan for development. We urge you to focus your efforts on supporting that process, not inventing another one. We request that you withdraw your offer to President Bollinger to take a leadership role in the "convening effort" you describe in your letter.

Columbia's duplicity, misinformation and half-truths about its Manhattanville expansion have gradually been exposed. It has failed to be honest about virtually every aspect of the plan - from the massive scale of the buildings to its current design which requires the leveling of all but one building north of 125th street, from its failure to outline the central role of biotech in its proposed research center (one that will operate beyond the initially announced level one and level two categories up to level three) to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fines it has already received, from its willingness to consider using eminent domain to get rid of businesses to the fact that it commenced discussions with New York City Department of Housing and Preservation (HPD) with regard to relocating tenants in city owned building without the knowledge of the tenants.

CPC believes WEACT could perform an invaluable service to the community by hosting educational forums and workshops on bio-technology that link social constructs of race and class to environmental racism, important factors to weigh when such facilities are placed in or near residential enclaves predominantly occupied by people of color. An in- depth examination of EPA oversight of Columbia and its recent history with that federal regulatory agency is another topic worthy of your exploration. CPC does not share your "appreciation" of the need for Columbia to expand deeper into West Harlem.

You pointed out in your letter to President Bollinger that the "additional space (Columbia seeks) amounts to a footprint greater than the rebuilding of the World Trade Center". We echo the refrain of many residents, "when is there enough space for Columbia?" Will it be when we are priced out of our homes, the inevitable result of primary and secondary displacement; when local businesses have fled and manufacturing jobs has been lost forever because of continual harassment and the threat of eminent domain; when an ethnically diverse and low to moderate income neighborhood disappears to make way for a gentrified and homogenized upscale residential enclave with Columbia occupying center stage? We do not view this as progress. CPC and WEACT may have a fundamentally different viewpoint on Columbia's expansion: We see this as a multi-billion dollar corporate expansion by a private institution reaping millions in government research grants and real estate tax exemptions.

Your characterization of local residents as experiencing "paranoia" after leaving Columbia's outreach meetings demeans their genuine skepticism and their intelligent historical assessment that the present course embarked upon by Columbia makes it virtually impossible for the communities of Harlem and Washington Heights to become as you suggested "organically linked and dialectically intertwined" with the university.

CPC is in complete agreement that the ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Process) must be postponed. But we find your call for Columbia to "invest in appropriate and substantive civic engagement" under the leadership of WEACT to "develop and resource a broad based planning process" to be contrary to the community process so many in the community have invested such effort to complete. Again, Section 197-A of the New York City Charter provides a planning process for this to occur within Community Board 9. The negotiation and drafting of a Community Benefits Agreement with Columbia University must be interrelated to and go hand-in hand with the drafting of the CB9 197-A plan.

It is a matter of public record that WEACT has received a number of grants in conjunction with Columbia University over the years. It has handed out awards to Columbia administrators at its annual dinners, held many of its forums on university grounds, and done joint research projects with Columbia. WEACT must be sensitive to the fact that there is already a legitimate perception of conflict of interest in terms of its relation to Columbia. This expansion plan by Columbia is the most significant development issue in West Harlem in many decades. It is essential that the community board process which includes both the 197-A plan and the Community Benefits Agreement be completely free of any appearance of conflict of interest or undue influence. This must be true of those parties taking leadership roles in the process and in matters of funding.

We are sure, that you, like we, want to participate in an open and unified process in which every group and individual seeks to benefit the larger community. All of us can and must work together within the framework of Community Board 9's planning process, one that can result in a workable and enforceable blueprint for development in West Harlem which has integrity and independence. Any development that occurs should be based on mutual respect, transparency and a commitment to protect the unique character of our neighborhood by all concerned parties.

Contact us by email at bfrappy24@aol.com or call Tom DeMott (212 666-6426) Nellie Bailey (212 316-2240) Cynthia Doty (212749-4085). Thank you.

Sincerely,

Tom DeMott Nellie Bailey Cynthia Doty
For the Coalition to Preserve Community Steering Committee

CC: City Planning, Rangel, Fields, Paterson, Schneiderman, Farrell, Wright, Espaillat, Perkins, Jackson, O'Donnell, Martinez, Reyes-Montblanc, Jones, Doctoroff, Poindexter, Schiffman, Bollinger.