CB9 Shows Unease Over Statement - Most Requests for Broader Study Rejected

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CB9 Shows Unease Over Statement
Most Requests for Broader Study Rejected
By Erin Durkin
Issue date: 9/27/06 Section: News

As consultants work around the clock to prepare a document detailing the environmental impact of Columbia's proposed Manhattanville expansion, some members of Community Board 9 are concerned that the ground rules for the study will prevent it from reflecting the true effects of the project.

Columbia is required to produce an environmental impact statement and have it approved by the city before the University can seek to rezone the area from 125th Street to 133rd Street between Broadway and 12th Avenue, where it plans to build its new campus. The University hopes the EIS will be certified by mid-fall.

The city has dismissed most of CB9's requests to broaden the scope of the study, a move that many attendees at a meeting Monday night interpreted as a slap in the face."There are 55 comments that were raised by the board. Of those, maybe five were answered in a way that gave any legitimacy to the comment. The other 50 were dismissed out of hand," anti-expansion activist Tom Kappner said. "Am I overreacting?"

"I think you're under-reacting," responded Ron Shiffman, an urban planner from the Pratt Institute, which is consulting with CB9.According to a document issued by the Department of City Planning, many of CB9's requests fell outside the guidelines of the City Environmental Quality Review Technical Manual, which governs environmental impact studies.

CB9 asked that the EIS consider an alternative plan without the use of eminent domain, but City Planning's document said that "the appropriateness of eminent domain as a tool for assemblage of property is not a subject for the EIS."

The EIS will compare the current situation on topics such as 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."

City Planning rejected this request, saying that, in accordance with the CEQR manual, existing conditions would be examined for 2005, but all of Columbia's property acquisitions since 2000 would be documented.

The agency also rejected a request that the study area be expanded to cover Columbia's campuses in Morningside Heights and Washington Heights. "The EIS will measure the impacts of the Proposed Project, not those of all of Columbia University's operations," the document states.CB9 members and consultants objected to what they saw as City Planning's acceptance of Columbia's rationale for the expansion. The document states that, "The purpose of the Proposed Actions is to meet Columbia University's critical need for additional academic research and academic teaching facilities to support its mission and maintain its status as one of the world's leading universities."

"This is so slanted against us it's sick," said CB9 member and Manhattanville business owner Anne Whitman.Whitman, who has refused to sell her property to Columbia and has been a harsh critic of the expansion, also said that the conduct of agents from AKRF-the firm that has been contracted to conduct the EIS for Columbia-had been overbearing and amounted to "extreme harassment."

"They're standing in front of my building photographing me and my employees," she said. "My employees are terrified."

Columbia spokeswoman La-Verna Fountain said of the AKRF agents, "We're very confident that they've conducted themselves appropriately."

"They have a great reputation," she said. "They know how to work in the community." She added that no one had contacted the University with complaints about the behavior of the consultants conducting the study.