City Receives Expansion Comments

Columbia Spectator

City Receives Expansion Comments
By Erin Durkin
Spectator Staff Writer


January 18, 2006

After November�s official meeting for those concerned about Columbia�s proposed Manhattanville plans, the city has received 50 official comments asking Columbia to reassess the possible impact of expansion.

Following the November scoping session, the public had until Jan. 6�allowing 45 days instead of the standard 10�to submit comments to the Department of City Planning on Columbia�s draft scope of work for its Environmental Impact Statement. The EIS has to be completed before the city will make the zoning changes necessary for the expansion. Most of the comments requested a broader and more in-depth study than the one outlined in the scope.

The University is still reviewing the comments and has not yet decided what changes will be made to the scope in response to them. University officials said in a statement, �The Department of City Planning, as lead agency, will review all of the comments that have been received and will begin work shortly on the Final Scope of Work. The Final Scope will summarize and provide responses to the substantive comments received from members of the public.�

State Senators Eric Schneiderman (D-Upper Manhattan) and David Paterson (D-Harlem) were the only elected officials to submit comments. Both urged city planning to consider Community Board 9�s 197-a plan, a framework for development in West Harlem, as a viable alternative to Columbia�s proposal.

The most extensive comments came from CB9 and West Harlem Environmental Action, known as WEACT, which recommended dozens of individual modifications to the scope. WEACT wrote, �We are disappointed to find that, as a document prepared by one of the world�s leading centers for learning and intellectual inquiry, the [scope] is utterly incomplete in its project description and grossly inadequate in its environmental analysis.�

CB9 said that the EIS should analyze an alternative without the use of eminent domain. It also said that the EIS should explore ways to avoid major environmental impact, rather than simply mitigating them, as proposed in the draft scope.

The EIS will have to compare the current situation on topics like socioeconomic conditions with the �reasonable worst case scenario� that may be created by the expansion. CB9 recommended that Columbia use an earlier year�2000 rather than 2005�as its �existing conditions baseline,� noting that �Columbia aggressively started purchasing property in this area around the year 2000, which could have been a direct cause for residential and business displacement.�

WEACT and CB9 both emphasized that the EIS should look at a much larger study area than the half to quarter mile proposed in the scope, since the expansion would create ripple effects such as rising rents across Harlem. They suggested that a more appropriate study area would stretch from Morningside Heights to Columbia University Medical Center in Washington Heights, saying that the construction of a new campus between the two existing ones would likely lead to gentrification throughout the entire area.

They also requested that Columbia carefully analyze potential harm caused by hazardous waste that may be produced by the research labs it plans to build in Manhattanville. The hazmat study outlined in the draft scope focuses more on materials that are already in the area, created by its historical industrial uses.

While echoing many of CB9�s comments, the Coalition to Preserve Community, a group that opposes the expansion, added a plea for the University to focus on the human aspects of �neighborhood character.�

�At the heart of any discussion of neighborhood character must be the type of community that the neighborhood serves and the atmosphere that it promotes on a human and social level,� CPC�s comments said. �The Scoping Document must address the possibility that Columbia�s proposed development could facilitate the eradication of Harlem�s essential identity as an African-American community.�

The Harlem Community Development Corporation, a state agency, disputed Columbia�s assertion that Manhattanville is a depressed community in need of revitalization. �Recent examples of investment in commercial, industrial, institutional, recreational and residential projects ... contradict the project description statement that Manhattanville and West Harlem have not shared in the economic renaissance occurring in central and East Harlem.�

Several comments expressed concern that the EIS would give inadequate treatment to Mahattanville�s historical landmarks. However, the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission wrote that �the text is acceptable for architectural resources.�