CB9 Still Unsatisfied With CU Plan Familiar Questions Dominate Last Meeting Before Scoping Session

Columbia Spectator

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CB9 Still Unsatisfied With CU Plan
Familiar Questions Dominate Last Meeting Before Scoping Session
By Erin Durkin
Spectator Staff Writer

November 10, 2005

At the fifth in a series of informational meetings, Columbia faced the West Harlem community Wednesday night for the last time before its upcoming scoping session, when the public will have the chance to comment on the scope of the impact Columbia�s proposed Manhattanville expansion project will have on the environment.

The two-hour meeting covered little new ground, as attendees from nearby communities repeated many of the same questions they have been asking for the past several weeks. Columbia officials remained unable to provide what attendees considered to be satisfactory answers.

Edwin Marshall, the Department of City Planning project manager for the expansion, announced that, in response to a request from Community Board 9, the public comment period after the scoping session will be extended to 45 days from the standard 10. �This is something that we�ve never done before,� he said.

Marshall had previously been asked whether City Planning would take Columbia�s past practices, which many have criticized, into account when deciding whether to approve its rezoning proposal. At the meeting, he said that this would not be considered.

�The City Planning Commission is proscribed from looking at the fitness or character of an applicant,� he said.

In response to a question about opportunities for minority-owned businesses, Columbia Vice President for Government and Community Affairs Maxine Griffith said that negotiations between Columbia and CB9, beginning in January, will work toward a community benefits agreement which would cover this and other topics.

But business owner Anne Whitman said the expansion would strip minorities and women of their property.

�I�m ashamed of you,� she said to Griffith. �How, as a person of morals, can you condone this?�

Noting that Columbia had struck generous deals to purchase land from many property owners, Griffith responded, �As a woman and as a minority and as someone who�s about five-foot-four-and-a-half inches tall, I�m very comfortable with that process.�

Several meeting attendees raised concerns about the antiseptic nature of the process for approving a project that will have human consequences.

�It�s only responsible that we not sterilize the process as business and bureaucracy does, and that we deal with the real people,� said CB9 board member Dr. Vicky Gholson, �People are only going to talk politely and nicely and within formats and within formulas for so long.�

West Harlem resident Mario Mazzoni echoed these sentiments, saying that the key issues for the neighborhood are not things like traffic and parking, but socioeconomic effects and changes in neighborhood character. Mainly black and Latino residents, he said, �are afraid that they will be surrounded by a community that is hostile to them and people like them.�