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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR- 263-04
October 6, 2004
MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG AND CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER GIFFORD MILLER ANNOUNCE THREE MAJOR MILESTONES IN THE EFFORT TO TRANSFORM THE HIGH LINE
City Commits Over $43 Million, State and the Railroads Join City in Request for “Rail-Banking” and Friends of the High Line & City Sign Contract for Master Plan Design Team
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Gifford Miller today announced $43.25 million in capital funding to design and build a great, new public open space on the High Line, the unused elevated rail structure on Manhattan’s West Side. The Mayor and Speaker along with Friends of the High Line (FHL) also announced the selection of a design team, led by landscape architecture firm Field Operations with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, to create the master plan for the High Line.
Lastly, the High Line project took another vital step forward when the State joined the City in a legal filing seeking permission to transform the High Line into public space through the federal rail-banking program. City Planning Department Director Amanda Burden, Economic Development Corporation President Andrew Alper, Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe, FHL Co-Founders Robert Hammond and Joshua David, Actor & FHL Member of the Board of Directors Edward Norton, Field Operations Principal James Corner joined the Mayor and Speaker for the announcement on the High Line structure at 14th Street and 10th Avenue.
“These three developments are crucial to achieving a central goal of our administration: creating a beautiful new public amenity that will serve as the spine of vibrant neighborhoods on Manhattan’s Far West Side and create new economic benefits in the years to come,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “As the City’s population grows, we’ve got to become more creative in developing open space and the area along the High Line is a perfect illustration of that innovative thinking taking place in New York City.”
“As one of the High Line’s earliest supporters, I’m especially proud of the Council’s vital role in driving this project forward,” said City Council Speaker Gifford Miller. “The progress announced today, which includes over $35 million in funds from the Council, is essential to making the dream of the High Line become a reality.”
“Today we’re taking an important step forward to realize the full potential of the High Line,” Governor George E. Pataki said. ”Thanks to great cooperation at all levels of government, the High Line can now be transformed into a new open space for all New Yorkers to enjoy. I want to commend the Friends of the High Line for their enormous efforts to turn this out-of-use rail structure into a beautiful greenway which will enhance the West Side of Manhattan.”
“What started as a grass-roots effort by a couple of local residents has now become a model partnership between the community, the City, the State, and the railroads,” said Edward Norton, actor and member of FHL Board of Directors. “It’s a great example of what’s so amazing about New York. Citizens take up a cause, and not only do their leaders listen, but they actively work with them to create something necessary and beautiful – something as unique and spectacular as the city itself.”
“We’re investing in the City’s future economic vitality at the same time that we build a great new park for future generations to enjoy,” said FHL Co-Founder Robert Hammond. “The transformation of the High Line is expected generate over $250 million in new real estate tax revenues over a twenty-year period. We are extremely pleased that the State and the railroad have joined the City in its efforts to create one of the world’s most innovative public open spaces. And we’re certain that Field Operations, working with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, can define a vision for the High Line that will make it a global model.”
Funding Commitments Enable Project to Move Forward Today’s new funding increases the City’s commitment by $27.5 million for a total of $43.25 million over the next four years. The funds will pay for project costs such as planning, design, engineering and construction. To complement the City’s funding commitment, Congressman Jerrold Nadler has included $5 million for the High Line in the six-year federal transportation bill that is now moving through Congress. Senators Schumer and Clinton are working to supplement the $5 million while the bill is in the Senate.
Design Team Begins Master Planning Process
FHL and the City also announced today that a team led by the landscape architecture firm Field Operations, working with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, have been selected to create a master plan for the High Line. A Steering Committee of representatives from the City of New York and Friends of the High Line selected the Field Operations team after a six-month selection process. The process began in March of 2004 with an open Request for Qualifications, which drew 52 team responses. The field was narrowed to four finalist teams in May of 2004, and the preliminary selection of the Field Operations team was made in August of 2004.
The master planning process for the High Line will begin immediately; to engage public participation in the master planning process, a community input forum will be held on October 19th at 7:00 pm, at Metropolitan Pavilion, 110 West 19th Street. This will be the first of many public programs designed to ensure a high level of public participation in the planning process.
To RSVP to the community input forum, e-mail community@thehighline.org. The team selected by FHL and the City to design the High Line master plan is led by Field Operations, a landscape architecture firm based in New York City. The architecture firm of Diller Scofidio + Renfro will partner with Field Operations in the master planning process. Horticulturist Piet Oudolf will guide the selection of plant materials employed in the High Line landscape.
“The High Line is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create one of the world’s most spectacular public urban spaces,” said Field Operations Design Principal James Corner. “Imagine a mile-and-a-half of surreal gardens in the sky, a linear stroll where time slows down and the spectacle of nature in the city is heightened to new levels of surprise and pleasure. And the High Line raises a host of extraordinary opportunities for new synthesis of ecology, art, urbanism, and urban culture.”
“We’re excited about re-tooling this distinctive piece of industrial infrastructure for post industrial use,” said Elizabeth Diller, Architect and Principal of Diller Scofidio + Renfro. “We foresee a new paradigm from the intersection of visual culture, civic responsibility, and public policy in which dualisms such as nature/artifice will be dissolved.”
“We are excited that we are able to apply an innovative use of zoning to ensure light, air and public access onto the future High Line,” said DCP Director Amanda Burden, who also participated in the selection committee for the High Line design team. “By successfully integrating this important industrial artifact with an entirely new concept of open space, we are creating a future treasure that we can enjoy and that will create even greater value in this exciting West Side neighborhood and for the city as a whole.”
“The adaptive reuse of the High Line will add a bold new dimension to the variety and quality of public open space in New York City,” said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “The experience of walking through a park suspended over the hustle and bustle of the city streets will be second to none.”
Federal Filing by State, Railroads, and City: A Powerful Push for Open Space Use
In one of the most significant developments to occur during the five-year High Line initiative, the State of New York, CSX Transportation and Conrail, respectively the current and former owners of the unused viaduct, and the City have filed a joint legal petition to the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) transform the High Line into public space through the federal rail-banking program. Rail-banking, a process defined by federal legislation in 1983, allows rail easements across the country to be used as public open space. Over 12,000 miles of rail corridors across the country have been converted to rail-trails, many through rail-banking.
“We’re pleased with the progress that has been made toward resolving the status of the High Line,” said John P. Casellini, Regional Vice President of Public Affairs, CSX Corporation. “We look forward to our continued work with the City and State of New York to reach an agreement that will enable the line to be used for the public’s benefit.”
The City began the rail-banking process in December of 2002, when it petitioned the STB to grant a Certificate of Interim Trail Use (CITU) for the High Line. The issuance of a CITU would allow the City to negotiate with the railroads to open the Line to the public. The September 22nd filing adds crucial State and railroad support to the City’s 2002 CITU request. The State of New York signed onto the filing through the Empire State Development Corporation. Both CSX Transportation, the Line’s current owner, and Conrail, its former owner, signed on to the filing.
The High Line was built in the 1930’s as part of the West Side Improvement Project, one of New York City’s largest investments in transportation infrastructure. No trains have run on the structure since 1980. In 1999, neighborhood residents founded Friends of the High Line with the mission of converting the structure to an elevated public space – a greenway or promenade. In December of 2002, the City took the first step in converting the High Line to a public walkway through federal rails-to-trails legislation.
Friends of the High Line is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization, founded in 1999 to preserve the High Line for reuse as an elevated public open space. Support for the project comes from hundreds of local residents, business-owners, and civic organizations, as well numerous elected officials. For more information on Friends of the High Line, please visit www.thehighline.org.
The High Line is private property, owned by CSX Transportation, and managed by CSX and the City. At this time, the site is not open to the public, and trespassers are subject to prosecution.
CONTACT: Edward Skyler / Jennifer Falk (212) 788-2958
Rachaele Raynoff (City Planning) (212) 720-3471
Megan Sheekey (Parks) (212) 360-1311
David Chai / Maria Alvarado (Speaker’s Office) (212) 788-0260
Joshua David (FHL) (212) 206-9922
Thursday, October 07, 2004
CITY OF NEW YORK
MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG
MAYOR
DEPARTMENT OF SANITATION
JOHN J. DOHERTY
COMMISSIONER
JOHN J. DOHERTY
COMMISSIONER
DRAFT
COMPREHENSIVE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
OCTOBER 2004
COMPREHENSIVE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
OCTOBER 2004
Web Site address: www.nyc.gov/sanitation
Draft New SWMP ES-1 October 2004
DRAFT COMPREHENSIVE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Nearly 50,000 tons of waste and recyclables are collected in New York City each day. Roughly 25% of that total is generated by the City’s residents and institutions—waste that is directly managed by the Department of Sanitation (DSNY).
The remainder is privately managed and generated by the City’s businesses or through construction activities. The system necessary to handle this volume of waste is vast and complex, involving a network of City employees, garages and specialized vehicles, as well as a far-flung array of private haulers, transfer stations and disposal companies.
For years, this complex network converged at the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island. But with the phasing out and ultimate closure of that landfill in 2001, a new network replaced the old: with no remaining in-City disposal options, both residential and commercial waste had to find
another home. The result was a new, predominantly truck-based system that relied on a combination of local, land-based private transfer stations and disposal of waste in neighboring states.
This system, while meeting the immediate needs of both commercial and residential waste streams, is unsustainable as a cornerstone of any long-term disposal plan. Perhaps most importantly, the heavy reliance on trucking has impacts on the environment and on local communities along major truck routes. In addition, the costs of this system are rising as nearby landfills fill up and the City is forced to rely on long-haul trucking to more distant landfills.
The Draft New Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan (Draft New SWMP or Plan) presented here offers a framework for dramatically reducing the number of truck trips and miles associated with disposal of New York City’s waste.
Simultaneously, it establishes a cost-effective, reliable, and environmentally sound system for managing the City’s waste over the next 20 years.
This Plan does more than simply address the direct challenges of residential waste after the closure of Fresh Kills Landfill. Reflecting input from a broad coalition of interests, it proposes meaningful and groundbreaking changes to the City’s recycling program. Equally importantly, it
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breaks new ground by recognizing commercial waste management as an important public policy issue and takes concrete steps to begin addressing concerns related to it. Taken together, the three sets of initiatives outlined here—in residential waste management, residential recycling and commercial waste management—will usher in a new era of solid waste stewardship and planning in New York City.
As an introduction to the Plan, it is important to understand the framework and principles that have guided its development. Specifically, the Plan attempts to:
Recognize the environmental issues surrounding waste: This Plan aims to
dramatically reduce the number of truck trips and truck miles involved in waste export and to address the traffic, air and noise issues that result from the current truck-based system.
Treat each borough fairly: This Plan recognizes that—for both commercial waste and DSNY-managed waste—responsibility for the City’s waste management system should be allocated equitably throughout the City, in each of the five boroughs.
Rely on sound business principles to increase efficiency and reduce cost: This Plan uses commercial competition, long-term contracts and containerization technology to control costs, leverage private investment and ensure efficiency for the system as a whole.
Be realistic and be able to be implemented quickly: This Plan recognizes the need to move swiftly beyond the status quo. To do so, this Plan takes advantage of existing public and private infrastructure where possible.
Look forward, allowing for future innovation: Although committed to a plan that can be implemented today, the City recognizes that future developments in technology could significantly enhance the management of solid waste.
Toward this end, the Plan outlines a number of studies and pilot projects that will provide the analytical foundation to modify or improve upon its component parts over the next two decades.
Be reliable: The management of waste is critical to the City’s physical health and economy. The system needs the flexibility to deal with day-to-day and seasonal changes in waste composition and volume, and must have the required redundancy should one or more of the system’s components fail.
Be built collaboratively: This Plan has benefited from input from community groups, elected officials, environmental advocates and the private sector; and it anticipates that they will continue to participate in its implementation.
Maintain service standards: DSNY provides a high level of service to the City’s residents. This Plan must enable DSNY to maintain or improve current service levels.
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AN OVERVIEW OF THE PLAN
Although they have evolved in different ways over the last decade, the systems for managing residential waste, residential recyclables and commercial waste are interdependent. This Plan recognizes this interdependency and sets out an ambitious strategy to weave together the systems when appropriate, primarily in the context of existing sites and physical facilities owned by both public and private entities.
A brief overview of initiatives on each of the three areas follows. More detailed information about these initiatives, as well as descriptions of the City’s specific proposed actions and current programs, are provided in subsequent sections of this Plan.
RECYCLING
The "reuse" of materials from the City’s waste stream has long been a component of the City’s solid waste management practices—from the use of material as fill for airports, parks and other building projects to the collection of scrap metal for the war efforts. Despite the unique
challenges of recycling in the New York City environment—including the prevalence of high-rise, multi-family dwellings—New York City is a leader in recycling among other large American cities. This Plan bolsters that leadership position by outlining aggressive but realistic recycling diversion goals, by identifying new recycling education initiatives and by committing
to new in-City processing facilities.
The cornerstone of the City’s recycling efforts is its curbside program, which currently includes the collection of paper as well as metal, glass and plastic (MGP). The stabilization and strengthening of the existing curbside program, primarily by reducing the program’s cost, is the most significant new recycling initiative outlined in this Plan.
To permanently lower the cost of the program, and to reduce its vulnerability to budget cutbacks, the City intends to commit to a long-term (20-year) contract with the Hugo Neu Corporation for
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the processing and marketing of MGP, in addition to certain amounts of paper. As with the City’s primary, mixed-paper contract with Visy on Staten Island, the long-term contract for MGP: shifts market risk for commodity prices to the private sector; attracts the investment of
millions of dollars of private capital in the infrastructure needed to process and export these recyclables; and gives our private-sector partners the commitments they need to be able to effectively market these materials.
A significant element of this new arrangement will be the development of an MGP processing facility in the City. The Plan proposes development of such a facility at the 30th Street Pier in the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. The new processing plant will be primarily barge-fed from
Hugo Neu Corporation sites in Queens and the Bronx and a potential DSNY location in Manhattan; recyclable materials from Brooklyn will be delivered directly by DSNY trucks.
(Recyclables from Staten Island will likely continue to be trucked to the Hugo Neu Corporation’s facility in New Jersey.) Processed materials will leave the plant by barge.
In addition to this long-term contract, DSNY is committed to a number of other initiatives that will strengthen, expand and grow its recycling and prevention efforts. Those efforts include working with the City Council to set percentage targets for recycling, using market research to enhance public education on recycling, developing a recycling education and export center in Manhattan, and targeting specific components of the waste stream, like electronics and yard waste.
Through the above-outlined initiatives, the City is committing to achieving a 25% diversion of recyclables through its curbside program by 2007. Though ambitious—representing a substantial increase over current diversion rates—this Plan includes the steps required both to meet this new diversion goal and to eventually set even more ambitious ones. Moreover, by putting the curbside program on solid economic footing, this Plan ensures that the City will realize significant cost savings, over $20 million a year.
Finally, by establishing a largely water-borne network for transportation of recyclables within and from the City, this Plan minimizes the truck-traffic associated with the City’s recycling efforts.
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RESIDENTIAL WASTE
The City began to phase out use of the Fresh Kills Landfill in 1997, with the intention of addressing the inequity of a system that burdened one community with the disposal of all the City’s residential waste. In the years leading up to its closure in 2001, with no alternative in-City disposal capacity, DSNY entered into short-term, interim contracts with private companies for the disposal of 100% of the residential waste stream—over 12,000 tons per day.
While the closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill relieved Staten Island of its unequal burden, it had far-reaching operational and physical
consequences. Disposal of residential waste at Fresh Kills Landfill had historically relied on a network of in-City Marine Transfer Stations (MTS), where locally collected waste was transferred to barges and moved by water to the landfill.
By contrast, the interim system relied heavily on long-haul trucks as the primary means for transporting the City’s waste from local transfer stations serving DSNY vehicles to final destinations out of state.
The City has long recognized the importance of moving quickly to develop a more permanent system of waste export, to address both the rising costs of nearby landfill disposal as well as the environmental impact of the current truck-dependent system. In July of 2002, Mayor Bloomberg
announced a plan to establish a system that would take advantage of the City’s waterways and existing infrastructure. The plan called for the physical conversion of the City’s MTS network, to enable waste to be containerized on site, making it suitable for long-haul disposal.
The long-term export components of the Plan outlined here build on the Mayor’s previously announced plan, ensuring that the primary goals of the original plan are met, but offering an expedited timeframe, a lower cost and reduced reliance on the complex facility conversions outlined initially. At its heart are the two main principles of the Mayor’s earlier plan: the
containerization of waste and the long-distance export of that waste in containers by barge or rail.
The improvements outlined here stem largely from the identification of existing private infrastructure to be used in lieu of certain MTS facilities. To evaluate the cost and feasibility of
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using private sites for transfer, DSNY issued Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for disposal of waste from the Bronx and Greenpoint wastesheds. These RFPs required all waste to be containerized and exported by barge or rail.
Concurrently, DSNY issued an RFP to solicit proposals on transport and disposal of containerized waste at the converted MTSs. The City also began
evaluating the possibility of continuing to rely on available capacity at nearby waste-to-energy facilities.
These steps were instrumental in the development of the program outlined below: Brooklyn For the Brooklyn wasteshed formerly served by the Greenpoint MTS, enter into a long-term contract with one or two private transfer stations for truckto-rail or truck-to-barge disposal.
For the Brooklyn wasteshed formerly served by the Hamilton Avenue MTS,
develop a City-owned converted MTS on the same site, where waste will be
received, containerized and exported by barge.
For the Brooklyn wasteshed formerly served by the Southwest Brooklyn
MTS, develop a City-owned converted MTS on the same site, where waste
will be received, containerized and exported by barge.
Bronx For the entire Bronx wasteshed, enter into a long-term contract with one or two private transfer stations for truck-to-rail disposal.
Manhattan For the Manhattan wastesheds formerly served by the West 135th Street MTS and the West 59th Street MTS, enter into a long-term service agreement with the Port Authority for the use of the Essex County Resource Recovery Facility in Newark, New Jersey to receive and process waste.
For the Manhattan wasteshed formerly served by the East 91st Street MTS,
develop a City-owned converted MTS on the same site, where waste will be
received, containerized and exported by barge.
Queens For the Queens wasteshed formerly served by the Greenpoint MTS, enter into a long-term contract with a private transfer station for truck-to-rail or truck-to-barge disposal.
For the Queens wasteshed formerly served by the North Shore MTS,
develop a City-owned converted MTS on the same site, where waste will be
received, containerized and exported by barge.
Staten Island
For the entire Staten Island wasteshed, complete construction of the Staten
Island transfer facility to be used for receipt, containerization and truck-to rail disposal.
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For the four wastesheds that will be served by City-owned MTSs, the City will enter into 20-year service agreements with one or more private waste management companies to accept the containerized waste, transport it by rail or barge and dispose of it.
These actions will ensure that the City’s residential waste will no longer be dependent on a land- and truck-based transfer and disposal network. By moving to a system built around barge and rail export, many of the system’s current community impacts will be eliminated. At the
same time, as landfill capacity in neighboring states continues to dwindle, forcing the City to rely on longer-range export, a rail- and barge-based system will ensure reduced transportation costs and better long-term economics for the system as a whole. Finally, because this Plan requires
fewer MTS conversions, it will require a lower investment of City capital and can be implemented on an expedited timetable.
COMMERCIAL WASTE
Commercial waste disposal is as significant in terms of volume and complexity as its residential counterpart, though the degree of interrelationship between the collection of commercial and
residential waste in the City has varied over time. Through the first half of the 20th century, there was hardly a distinction between the two: DSNY collected and disposed of all City waste, commercial and residential. The current division of labor—with DSNY taking responsibility for
residential waste and private haulers for commercial waste—was established in the late 1950s.
But because private haulers took advantage of the low-cost option of disposing at the City’s landfills, both residential and commercial waste continued to depend on the same ultimate disposal location.
During the late 1980s, concerns about preserving capacity at the Fresh Kills Landfill caused the City to dramatically raise rates for private haulers to tip there. With the economics of their business changed dramatically, these private haulers began building up a network of in-City transfer stations, points from which waste from local collection trucks was transferred to
long-haul trucks for export outside of the City. With the establishment of this all-private system, the City’s commercial and residential waste was completely segregated for the first time.
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The closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill in 2001 once again resulted in the commingled disposal of commercial and residential waste, only now the relationship was reversed. Where the private haulers once relied on the City’s disposal infrastructure at the Fresh Kills Landfill, the City was
now to be reliant on the transfer stations and landfills of the private sector. As the phased closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill was achieved, from 1997 to 2001, DSNY-managed waste was injected into the private system of transfer stations, landfills and waste-to-energy facilities.
With the addition of the DSNY-managed stream, traffic from trucks serving existing private transfer facilities grew. This growth in traffic occurred mainly in a small number of communities that, as a result of the City’s industrial zoning requirements and transportation logistics, were home to the greatest share of transfer stations. The quality of life in these
communities was affected as a result.
This Plan proposes three broad categories of action to address these commercial waste issues by: improving conditions at and around the transfer stations that currently serve as the lynchpin of both public and private networks; facilitating the private commercial waste industry’s transition from a network that is heavily reliant on trucks to one that relies primarily on barge and rail; and developing a sound approach to redistribute private transfer capacity from a small number of
communities that have the largest proportion of the system’s impacts. To meet those three goals, DSNY will undertake the initiatives described below.
First, to improve conditions in and around private transfer stations, the City proposes three major initiatives: To improve conditions at the stations themselves, DSNY has proposed amendments to the existing rules governing their operation and maintenance. More stringent operation and
maintenance requirements as well as additional enforcement measures will minimize the environmental impacts of transfer station operations. As an example, the amendments will for the first time place restrictions on air emissions coming from stationary equipment and non-road vehicles operated at transfer stations and will also require installation of state-of-the-art odor control equipment at all putrescible transfer stations. Enforcing these new rules will require
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additional funding, and as a means of obtaining this funding, DSNY proposes to increase the permitting fees that transfer stations pay. Increased fees will fund the hiring of new personnel wth technical expertise as well as the training of inspectors to issue violations for unlawful air missions.
To improve conditions around the stations, DSNY will amend the siting regulations for private wste transfer stations. For the first time, these rules will place restrictions on both the siting of new solid waste transfer stations and the expansion of existing facilities, taking into account
appropriate buffer zones between transfer stations and sensitive locations such as residential districts, parks and schools. These new rules will also limit the number of transfer stations that can be located in M1 areas in any given community district and they will encourage the development of transfer stations that export waste by rail or barge.
Also as a means of improving conditions around transfer stations, and as a direct result of community input received during the environmental review of this Plan, DSNY proposes specific actions to address issues related to truck traffic. Although the majority of the commercial waste transfer stations are well buffered from conforming residential uses, the truck
traffic generated by these facilities often passes through residential areas, even when those trucks are using designated truck routes. DSNY will work with the Department of Transportation to conduct a traffic analysis to study the feasibility of redirecting truck routes in key affected
communities away from commercial thoroughfares that pass through these residential areas. To help develop and evaluate alternative truck routes, community advisory groups will be established and industry representatives and the City Council will be consulted.
Second, because the transition from a truck-based commercial waste network to a barge- and rail-dependent system is a critical component of an environmentally responsible Solid Waste Management Plan, the City commits to using its existing waterfront infrastructure as well as the
leverage of its own long-term contracts to support that shift. In Manhattan, where over 40 percent of the City’s commercial waste originates but no private putrescible transfer stations are located, the DSNY proposes to reserve its West 59th Street MTS and work with the private sector
to explore ways to use it as a transfer station for commercial waste. In addition, the City will
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evaluate ways to encourage the movement of commercial waste through the MTSs that will be converted as part of the long-term export Plan outlined earlier. And in areas where long-term export contracts with private transfer stations will eliminate the need to convert an existing MTS,
DSNY will encourage those private facilities to export all waste—not just the City’s waste—by barge or rail.
Finally, the City will seek to limit or redistribute commercial waste capacity from communities with the greatest number of transfer stations, once a portion of the MTS infrastructure can be made available for commercial waste. Because the MTS conversions will have the effect of creating significant new putrescible capacity across the City, capacity can be reduced in targeted areas without straining the system. To achieve this proposal, DSNY will work with community groups, the industry and the City Council.
For the first time since responsibility for commercial waste was shifted to the private sector, the City is proposing a coordinated and comprehensive approach to addressing the environmental issues associated with the current system of managing commercial waste. By committing not
just to increased regulation and planning but also to the use of City-owned infrastructure, this Plan will ensure that the impacts of the commercial waste system are more evenly distributed throughout the City and that private waste transfer stations, wherever they may be located, will
have a reduced impact on their surrounding communities.
OTHER INITIATIVES
DSNY is also committed to a number of other initiatives that span the three areas outlined above.
These initiatives include taking important steps to continue to improve the environmental performance of its fleet, evaluating alternative waste disposal technologies, and conducting the research required to better understand the composition of the City’s waste stream.
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DSNY is a national leader in municipal alternative fuels research and testing, and is currently ahead of both federal and City schedules in converting its entire fleet to ultra-low-sulfur diesel (ULSD). In 2001, DSNY was the first City agency to pilot the use of ULSD and it is now proud
to be the first City agency to provide ULSD to its entire fleet. As another example, DSNY recently procured 26 new compressed natural gas (CNG) collection-trucks.
DSNY has also evaluated the costs and benefits of other fuel and technology alternatives for use in its fleet vehicles, including biodiesel, fuel cells, propane, ethanol, methanol, and hybrid electric vehicles. While none were deemed to be as immediately promising and cost-effective as
the clean diesel and natural gas options, DSNY will continue to assess these new technologies as they evolve.
In addition to its efforts to improve the environmental performance of its fleet, the City has also committed to the ongoing, long-range planning that a comprehensive solid waste management framework requires. Towards that end, the City recently conducted a research project to study the viability of composting, and performed an evaluation of other new and emerging waste management technologies, including gasification and anaerobic digestion. While this study concluded that no one technology is ready to handle the entirety of the City’s waste stream in the near term, further investigation is underway and appropriate pilot projects are being identified.
Finally, the City is in the process of updating its existing waste composition data, by undertaking a comprehensive, four-season waste characterization study. The level of detail and range of waste streams examined in the current study is unprecedented among municipal waste characterization studies in the United States. As a result of this study, the City will be able to: determine whether additional materials may be appropriate for recycling; improve public education efforts; inform DSNY operations, including equipment procurement, facility construction, and collection route structure; and provide an understanding of how the City’s
waste stream has changed over the past decade.
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SUMMARY
As a whole, this Plan outlines a new framework for waste management in New York City. As its starting point, it sets ambitious recycling goals and, by establishing the systems and public education necessary to reach those goals, ensures that the City will be putting an increasing percentage of its waste stream to beneficial use. In doing so, New York will not just be
exporting in a manner that is cost-effective, environmentally responsible, and sensitive to its local communities: it will simply be exporting less.
Equally as important, this Plan eliminates the City’s reliance on a network of land-based transfer stations and long-haul trucking to export residential waste, and in doing so begins to address the community impacts of the current network. But the Plan goes further: by taking bold actions
with respect to commercial waste, it seeks to eliminate the impact of trucks wherever possible.
In doing so, this Plan begins to address the larger challenge of the City’s waste system as a whole, public and private, and offers a new standard by which the City will measure its progress.
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RECYCLING
Initiatives
Institute a 20-year contract for MGP stream, including the construction of a privately financed processing facility at South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.
Enhance waste prevention programs.
Enhance composting initiatives.
Work with the City Council to set percentage diversion goals for recycling.
Use market research to enhance public education on recycling.
Develop an electronics recycling program.
Establish a recycling education and export center at the Gansevoort Peninsula or
at an alternative Manhattan MTS site.
Goals
A 25% diversion of residential recyclables (through DSNY’s curbside collection program) by 2007.
A70% recycling diversion rate for the City’s combined residential and
commercial waste stream by 2015.
Greater awareness of, and participation in, recycling efforts.
A stable, 20-year, curbside program for collecting recyclable paper and MGP.
An infrastructure for processing, marketing and exporting recyclables.
Utilization of the City’s waterways, not long-haul trucks, for the transportation of recyclables.
A reduction in the price for processing MGP from the curbside program, from the over $100 per ton proposed in 2002 to less than $50 per ton.
New jobs and economic development along the Brooklyn waterfront.
Draft New SWMP ES-14 October 2004
RESIDENTIAL WASTE
Initiatives
Pursuant to already-issued RFPs, negotiate agreements for the private export of containerized waste by barge and rail in the Bronx and in the Brooklyn and Queens wastesheds formerly served by the Greenpoint MTS.
Pursuant to an already-issued RFP, negotiate agreements for the private transport and disposal of containerized waste from the converted MTSs.
Complete construction of the Staten Island transfer station and pursuant to an already-issued RFP; finalize the negotiation of an agreement with the selected vendor for the transport and disposal of containerized waste from that facility.
Based on parameters established under an existing interim contract with the Essex County resource recovery facility, negotiate a long-term government-togovernment agreement with the Port Authority for the use of disposal capacity at that facility.
Move forward on the design (currently 90% completed), land use approvals, permitting and conversion of the East 91st Street, North Shore, Hamilton Avenue and Southwest Brooklyn MTSs.
Goals
Eliminate the use of long-haul trucks for the transport of DSNY-managed waste.
Stabilize the long-term economics of waste export.
Reduce the capital cost of the original MTS reactivation plan.
Expedite move away from interim contracts.
Provide multiple disposal options, including multiple landfills and a resource recovery facility.
Maximize transportation flexibility via a shift to containerization.
Ensure equitable distribution of waste handling facilities across the City.
Draft New SWMP ES-15 October 2004
COMMERCIAL WASTE
Initiatives
Redistribute/limit capacity in the communities with the greatest concentration of transfer stations.
Implement new siting regulations.
Promulgate new operational regulations.
Perform a traffic analysis to reduce transfer trailer traffic on selected truck routes.
Increase and restructure fees associated with transfer station permits, with
proceeds to be used for training and enforcement of new regulations.
Reserve the West 59th Street MTS for commercial waste.
Leverage DSNY export contracts for barge and rail export of commercial waste.
Goals
Expansion of barge and rail export of commercial waste.
Redistribution of commercial waste flow.
Reduction in noise, odor and dust conditions at private waste transfer stations.
Enhancement of DSNY-enforcement of private transfer stations.
Minimize truck trips associated with disposal of Manhattan’s commercial waste.
Lessen impact of truck routes serving transfer stations.
Limit siting of new facilities in communities with the greatest concentration of transfer stations.
Subject: Deadline to Register to Vote on Election Day is Fast Approaching
The following contributed by Mary Titus.
Deadline to Register to Vote on Election Day is Fast Approaching
The deadline to register to vote on Election Day, November 2, 2004, is fast approaching!
Mail-in voter registration forms must be postmarked by midnight tomorrow, Friday, October 8.
There will also be local sites where voters can register in person on Saturday, October 9. To find those sites, please call your county boards of elections. The phone number for county boards of election can be found at the State Board of Elections website, www.elections.state.ny.us, or you can call 1-800-FOR-VOTE.
Voter registration forms are available at county boards of elections as well as many post offices, libraries and state agency offices throughout New York . Internet users may download a registration form by clicking on Voting on the State Board's web site at http://www.elections.state.ny.us/.
This year is not only the Presidential election also half US Senate and all US Congressional, State Senate and State Assembly seats will be on the ballot, as well as candidates for State Supreme Court in most judicial districts. We need your help spreading the word about the upcoming voter registration deadline.
Please pass this message along to your friends!For more information on registering to vote in New York State, call 1-800-FOR-VOTE or go to http://www.elections.state.ny.us/.
REMINDER : Voters who will be out of their county on Election Day, November 2, 2004, or will be unable to go to the polls on Election Day because of illness or physical disability, may vote by absentee ballot .
Voters will receive an absentee ballot after they complete an application and mail it to their county board of elections no later than Tuesday, October 26 or hand deliver it by Monday, November 1.
Applications for absentee ballots are available at any county board of elections. Internet users can download an application by clicking on "Absentee Voting" on the New York State Board of Elections web site, http://www.elections.state.ny.us/.
Deadline to Register to Vote on Election Day is Fast Approaching
The deadline to register to vote on Election Day, November 2, 2004, is fast approaching!
Mail-in voter registration forms must be postmarked by midnight tomorrow, Friday, October 8.
There will also be local sites where voters can register in person on Saturday, October 9. To find those sites, please call your county boards of elections. The phone number for county boards of election can be found at the State Board of Elections website, www.elections.state.ny.us, or you can call 1-800-FOR-VOTE.
Voter registration forms are available at county boards of elections as well as many post offices, libraries and state agency offices throughout New York . Internet users may download a registration form by clicking on Voting on the State Board's web site at http://www.elections.state.ny.us/.
This year is not only the Presidential election also half US Senate and all US Congressional, State Senate and State Assembly seats will be on the ballot, as well as candidates for State Supreme Court in most judicial districts. We need your help spreading the word about the upcoming voter registration deadline.
Please pass this message along to your friends!For more information on registering to vote in New York State, call 1-800-FOR-VOTE or go to http://www.elections.state.ny.us/.
REMINDER : Voters who will be out of their county on Election Day, November 2, 2004, or will be unable to go to the polls on Election Day because of illness or physical disability, may vote by absentee ballot .
Voters will receive an absentee ballot after they complete an application and mail it to their county board of elections no later than Tuesday, October 26 or hand deliver it by Monday, November 1.
Applications for absentee ballots are available at any county board of elections. Internet users can download an application by clicking on "Absentee Voting" on the New York State Board of Elections web site, http://www.elections.state.ny.us/.
MTA Planned Subway Station Booth Closings
From: New York City Transit October 6, 2004
To: Community Board 9 Manhattan
Re: MTA Planned Subway Station Booth Closings
As you are no doubt aware, the Metropolitan Transporation Authority is faced with a deficit in its 2005 operating budget. To meet this challenge and to balance its budget as required by state law, savings in perating costs will be achieved through cost-reduction programs undertaken by all MTA agencies. Additionally, changes in the fare pricing structure and increase in tools are being considered as a method of generating additional new revenuws. To ensure the public's participation in this process, public hearings on these proposals ad the steps proposed to balance the 2005 budget (including those described below) are anticipated to be scheduled this fall in various locales within the MTA service region. Notices of the time and locations for these hearings will be sent to you shortly under separate cover.
As part of the MTA's cost-savings effort, New York City Transit is planning to eliminate all 115 part-time subway station booths as well as 49 full-time booths with relatively low entry and exit volumes. We can permanently close these 164 booths without significant inconvenience to our customers. Indeed, at a number of the part-time locations, we will actually be increasing hours of access since many entrances that are currently only open part-time will be open around the clock, with customers able to enter the system through MetroCard-activated High Entry/Exit Turnstiles. Witht he esception of six locations that wxit into privately owned buildings and are closed at certain hours and at one at which there is no wekend subways ervice, all the proposed sites will provide access at all times. At all entraces where the 164 booths proposed for permanent closing are located, we will take steps to ensure appropriate means of ingress and egress for all customers, including the disabled, consistent with applicable provisions of federal and state law and regulations. In additon, at every station in which the 164 booths scheduled to be permanently closed are located, there will continue to a fulltime booth, operating 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.
With the advent of automated fare collection and the subsequent widespread use of the MetroCard and MetroCard Vending machines, other convenient, cheaper and more efficient alternatives to service booths as a means of selling fare media is available. The plan to eliminate these 115 part-time and 49 full-time booths reflects the success of fare-collection technology and will directly contribute to NYC Transit efforts to achieve cost reductions. It will also allow us to re-assign Station Agents ouside the booths,where they will be able to provide a greater range of services and assistance to our customers.
Pursuant to Public Authorities law ss1205, we are soliciting your commnets in connection with any part-time and full-time booths within your community board that are scheduled for permanent closing. For your additional information, the attached list inclueds not only any such booth within your community board, but also all of the 164 proposed locations throughout the City. The list indicates the station, subway line, control area (booth) number, current hours,current access hours, and new access hours.
Should you require more information on this or any other transit matter, do not hesitate to contact me or Director of Government and Coomunity Relations Lois H. Tendler. Ms. Tendler can be reached at (646) 252-2660.
Sincerely,
(signature)
Lawrence G. Reuter
President
Will list only Cb9M or affecting CB9M Stations:
# Station Line Booth#
40. 135 Street A N023
41. 125 Street A N025
42. 116 Street C N029
121. 110 Street 1 R171
122. 137 Street 1 R175
123. 145 Street 1 R177
124. 157 Street 1 R179
To: Community Board 9 Manhattan
Re: MTA Planned Subway Station Booth Closings
As you are no doubt aware, the Metropolitan Transporation Authority is faced with a deficit in its 2005 operating budget. To meet this challenge and to balance its budget as required by state law, savings in perating costs will be achieved through cost-reduction programs undertaken by all MTA agencies. Additionally, changes in the fare pricing structure and increase in tools are being considered as a method of generating additional new revenuws. To ensure the public's participation in this process, public hearings on these proposals ad the steps proposed to balance the 2005 budget (including those described below) are anticipated to be scheduled this fall in various locales within the MTA service region. Notices of the time and locations for these hearings will be sent to you shortly under separate cover.
As part of the MTA's cost-savings effort, New York City Transit is planning to eliminate all 115 part-time subway station booths as well as 49 full-time booths with relatively low entry and exit volumes. We can permanently close these 164 booths without significant inconvenience to our customers. Indeed, at a number of the part-time locations, we will actually be increasing hours of access since many entrances that are currently only open part-time will be open around the clock, with customers able to enter the system through MetroCard-activated High Entry/Exit Turnstiles. Witht he esception of six locations that wxit into privately owned buildings and are closed at certain hours and at one at which there is no wekend subways ervice, all the proposed sites will provide access at all times. At all entraces where the 164 booths proposed for permanent closing are located, we will take steps to ensure appropriate means of ingress and egress for all customers, including the disabled, consistent with applicable provisions of federal and state law and regulations. In additon, at every station in which the 164 booths scheduled to be permanently closed are located, there will continue to a fulltime booth, operating 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.
With the advent of automated fare collection and the subsequent widespread use of the MetroCard and MetroCard Vending machines, other convenient, cheaper and more efficient alternatives to service booths as a means of selling fare media is available. The plan to eliminate these 115 part-time and 49 full-time booths reflects the success of fare-collection technology and will directly contribute to NYC Transit efforts to achieve cost reductions. It will also allow us to re-assign Station Agents ouside the booths,where they will be able to provide a greater range of services and assistance to our customers.
Pursuant to Public Authorities law ss1205, we are soliciting your commnets in connection with any part-time and full-time booths within your community board that are scheduled for permanent closing. For your additional information, the attached list inclueds not only any such booth within your community board, but also all of the 164 proposed locations throughout the City. The list indicates the station, subway line, control area (booth) number, current hours,current access hours, and new access hours.
Should you require more information on this or any other transit matter, do not hesitate to contact me or Director of Government and Coomunity Relations Lois H. Tendler. Ms. Tendler can be reached at (646) 252-2660.
Sincerely,
(signature)
Lawrence G. Reuter
President
Will list only Cb9M or affecting CB9M Stations:
# Station Line Booth#
40. 135 Street A N023
41. 125 Street A N025
42. 116 Street C N029
121. 110 Street 1 R171
122. 137 Street 1 R175
123. 145 Street 1 R177
124. 157 Street 1 R179
City Trash Plan Forgoes Trucks, Favoring Barges
New York Times
October 7, 2004
City Trash Plan Forgoes Trucks, Favoring Barges
By IAN URBINA
Three years after the closing of the mammoth Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, the Bloomberg administration has drawn up a 20-year plan to deal with the city's residential waste by shipping the bulk of it elsewhere by barge, officials who have been briefed on the plan said yesterday.
The city has struggled for years with how to handle the 11,000 tons of waste per day that used to go to Fresh Kills, and since it was closed the city has been relying on trucks to cart most of its garbage out of state, a costly solution that generates pollution and traffic congestion. In an announcement planned for today, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was expected to address those concerns by proposing renovation of four waste transfer stations along the city's waterfront: two in Brooklyn, one in Queens and one on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The plan is the culmination of a wider strategy that includes committing the city to recycling more of its garbage and shipping its commercial refuse away through a pier on the West Side of Manhattan - proposals announced over the last two weeks.
The city did not release any estimates of what the plan would cost or when it would take effect.
One goal appears to be to keep one borough's garbage from becoming another's burden, as is the case now, when garbage trucks rumble throughout the city carting trash mainly to points west of New York. While Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn would have marine transfer stations, where trash can be dumped onto barges, Staten Island and the Bronx would rely on trains to cart trash away.
In recent years, the cost of handling waste has skyrocketed, as the city has depended on private transfer stations and private out-of-state haulers. By reopening its own transfer stations, the city hopes to reduce its dependence on private companies and lower its transport costs. With the marine transfer stations, the city also aims to gain more control over who carries the garbage away and where it is taken.
The plan, whose details have not been released publicly, will likely please residents of the neighborhoods that would have reduced garbage truck traffic, as well as those of areas like Harlem that had been considered potential sites for transfer stations. But the mayor's proposal will likely trigger a fight on the City Council, particularly over the reopening of the waste transfer station on East 91st Street in Manhattan, which lies in the district represented by the Council's speaker, Gifford Miller.
"I'm glad that they listened to the concerns that I raised about the West Harlem site, but they didn't listen when it came to the 91st Street station, which makes no sense at all," said Mr. Miller, who is likely to run for mayor in 2005. "Both of these are densely residential areas, and if it's a bad idea to open a station in one place, then it's also a bad idea to open it in the other."
The plan is subject to the Council's approval.
Under the plan, the city would avoid reopening the marine transfer station in the Bronx by signing a long-term contract with Waste Management, a major trash-hauling company that runs a station on the Harlem River, in the Mott Haven neighborhood, where the trash is shipped by rail. And while much of Manhattan's trash would leave the city by barge once the 91st Street station was rebuilt, some would be trucked directly from the curbside to a trash-to-energy plant near Newark under a long-term contract with an incineration company there.
Last week, the city announced its plan for handling commercial waste, which would involve reopening the marine transfer station on West 59th Street in Manhattan. The city also intends to open the Gansevoort station in Greenwich Village, on the Hudson River near 12th Street, which would be used exclusively to handle recyclable materials from Manhattan.
The trash problem has been a particularly vexing one for Mayor Bloomberg, who announced in July 2002 his intention to reopen eight marine transfer stations, only to backpedal after being faced with staunch community opposition and realizing that the transfer stations could not simply be reopened but would need to be demolished, expanded and rebuilt at a much higher cost.
The administration will likely set a goal of recycling 25 percent of its waste in the next several years, officials said. It will try to achieve this goal in part by building an educational center attached to the Gansevoort station, where the public could watch how recycling works.
Upon learning of the plan, many neighborhood and environmental groups expressed praise for the city's approach.
"This plan is great news for Harlem," said Peggy M. Shepard, executive director of West Harlem Environmental Action. "Anything that avoids more traffic and pollution coming through our neighborhood is a good thing."
Mark A. Izeman, a senior lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group said, "A positive part of the plan, as we understand it now, is an increased use of barge and rail to reduce truck traffic through our neighborhoods."
Others were less pleased.
"We think it's a terrible idea to open one of these stations in any residential district," said Richard G. Leland, a lawyer for the Gracie Point Community Council, a community group on the Upper East Side. "The mayor has made a determination to have a solid waste plan that sends hundreds of trucks that will endanger the health of children, elders and park users."
Some city officials, particularly the city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., expressed concerns about longer-term problems the city faces in handling its garbage.
"After much coaxing, the City finally realized that it must focus on waste reduction and recycling," Mr. Thompson said. "Now, the City must come to terms with the fact that there will be nowhere to ship our garbage unless we address this problem proactively."
In a report to be released today, the comptroller predicted that the city would run into problems in the next several years as landfill space ran out and the cost of handling waste continued to soar. The report said the city's waste-disposal costs jumped to $75 per ton in 2002 from $54 per ton in 1997. The report also projected that Pennsylvania, one of the primary importers of New York City's waste, would nearly run out of landfill space by 2007.
To address these concerns, the city will probably also begin exploring ways to increase recycling and will look to alternative technologies for diverting waste from landfills and incineration, experts in the field say. These technologies include gasification, which is a type of high-temperature incineration that releases almost no pollution. The city will also likely investigate an accelerated type of composting that can be done on a larger scale.
Some experts view the plan with a touch of skepticism. "Every other plan for the last 25 years has itself ended up in the trash," said Steven M. Polan, who served as the City's sanitation commissioner from 1990 to 1992. When the last plan was released in 1992, the city committed itself to building an incinerator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and in 1999 Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced a plan to ship waste to a rail transfer operation in Linden, N.J. None of it happened, Mr. Polan said.
"It's one thing to design a plan," he said. "It's another matter to actually implement it."http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/nyregion/07trash.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
October 7, 2004
City Trash Plan Forgoes Trucks, Favoring Barges
By IAN URBINA
Three years after the closing of the mammoth Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, the Bloomberg administration has drawn up a 20-year plan to deal with the city's residential waste by shipping the bulk of it elsewhere by barge, officials who have been briefed on the plan said yesterday.
The city has struggled for years with how to handle the 11,000 tons of waste per day that used to go to Fresh Kills, and since it was closed the city has been relying on trucks to cart most of its garbage out of state, a costly solution that generates pollution and traffic congestion. In an announcement planned for today, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was expected to address those concerns by proposing renovation of four waste transfer stations along the city's waterfront: two in Brooklyn, one in Queens and one on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The plan is the culmination of a wider strategy that includes committing the city to recycling more of its garbage and shipping its commercial refuse away through a pier on the West Side of Manhattan - proposals announced over the last two weeks.
The city did not release any estimates of what the plan would cost or when it would take effect.
One goal appears to be to keep one borough's garbage from becoming another's burden, as is the case now, when garbage trucks rumble throughout the city carting trash mainly to points west of New York. While Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn would have marine transfer stations, where trash can be dumped onto barges, Staten Island and the Bronx would rely on trains to cart trash away.
In recent years, the cost of handling waste has skyrocketed, as the city has depended on private transfer stations and private out-of-state haulers. By reopening its own transfer stations, the city hopes to reduce its dependence on private companies and lower its transport costs. With the marine transfer stations, the city also aims to gain more control over who carries the garbage away and where it is taken.
The plan, whose details have not been released publicly, will likely please residents of the neighborhoods that would have reduced garbage truck traffic, as well as those of areas like Harlem that had been considered potential sites for transfer stations. But the mayor's proposal will likely trigger a fight on the City Council, particularly over the reopening of the waste transfer station on East 91st Street in Manhattan, which lies in the district represented by the Council's speaker, Gifford Miller.
"I'm glad that they listened to the concerns that I raised about the West Harlem site, but they didn't listen when it came to the 91st Street station, which makes no sense at all," said Mr. Miller, who is likely to run for mayor in 2005. "Both of these are densely residential areas, and if it's a bad idea to open a station in one place, then it's also a bad idea to open it in the other."
The plan is subject to the Council's approval.
Under the plan, the city would avoid reopening the marine transfer station in the Bronx by signing a long-term contract with Waste Management, a major trash-hauling company that runs a station on the Harlem River, in the Mott Haven neighborhood, where the trash is shipped by rail. And while much of Manhattan's trash would leave the city by barge once the 91st Street station was rebuilt, some would be trucked directly from the curbside to a trash-to-energy plant near Newark under a long-term contract with an incineration company there.
Last week, the city announced its plan for handling commercial waste, which would involve reopening the marine transfer station on West 59th Street in Manhattan. The city also intends to open the Gansevoort station in Greenwich Village, on the Hudson River near 12th Street, which would be used exclusively to handle recyclable materials from Manhattan.
The trash problem has been a particularly vexing one for Mayor Bloomberg, who announced in July 2002 his intention to reopen eight marine transfer stations, only to backpedal after being faced with staunch community opposition and realizing that the transfer stations could not simply be reopened but would need to be demolished, expanded and rebuilt at a much higher cost.
The administration will likely set a goal of recycling 25 percent of its waste in the next several years, officials said. It will try to achieve this goal in part by building an educational center attached to the Gansevoort station, where the public could watch how recycling works.
Upon learning of the plan, many neighborhood and environmental groups expressed praise for the city's approach.
"This plan is great news for Harlem," said Peggy M. Shepard, executive director of West Harlem Environmental Action. "Anything that avoids more traffic and pollution coming through our neighborhood is a good thing."
Mark A. Izeman, a senior lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group said, "A positive part of the plan, as we understand it now, is an increased use of barge and rail to reduce truck traffic through our neighborhoods."
Others were less pleased.
"We think it's a terrible idea to open one of these stations in any residential district," said Richard G. Leland, a lawyer for the Gracie Point Community Council, a community group on the Upper East Side. "The mayor has made a determination to have a solid waste plan that sends hundreds of trucks that will endanger the health of children, elders and park users."
Some city officials, particularly the city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., expressed concerns about longer-term problems the city faces in handling its garbage.
"After much coaxing, the City finally realized that it must focus on waste reduction and recycling," Mr. Thompson said. "Now, the City must come to terms with the fact that there will be nowhere to ship our garbage unless we address this problem proactively."
In a report to be released today, the comptroller predicted that the city would run into problems in the next several years as landfill space ran out and the cost of handling waste continued to soar. The report said the city's waste-disposal costs jumped to $75 per ton in 2002 from $54 per ton in 1997. The report also projected that Pennsylvania, one of the primary importers of New York City's waste, would nearly run out of landfill space by 2007.
To address these concerns, the city will probably also begin exploring ways to increase recycling and will look to alternative technologies for diverting waste from landfills and incineration, experts in the field say. These technologies include gasification, which is a type of high-temperature incineration that releases almost no pollution. The city will also likely investigate an accelerated type of composting that can be done on a larger scale.
Some experts view the plan with a touch of skepticism. "Every other plan for the last 25 years has itself ended up in the trash," said Steven M. Polan, who served as the City's sanitation commissioner from 1990 to 1992. When the last plan was released in 1992, the city committed itself to building an incinerator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and in 1999 Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced a plan to ship waste to a rail transfer operation in Linden, N.J. None of it happened, Mr. Polan said.
"It's one thing to design a plan," he said. "It's another matter to actually implement it."http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/nyregion/07trash.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
The Future of NYC Drinking Water
Subject: The Future of NYC Drinking Water
Date: 10/1/2004 3:25:49 PM GMT Daylight Time
From: MarianR451
A REMINDER
The Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition cordially invites you to attend a lecture byProfessor Audrey Levine, Ph.D., who will speak on Membrane Filtration and its Applications to the NYC Drinking Water Supply
Date: Monday, October 18, 2004
Time: 5 PM
Place: The Roger Smith Hotel/ Winthrop Room
501 Lexington Avenue at 47th Street
RSVP: Please call Wendy: at 914 234-6470
or Marian: at 914 234- 3179
Please respond no later than Friday, October 15 to let us know that you will
be attending the lecture.Thank you
As you know, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is planning to build $1.5 billion chemical treatment/filtration plant for Croton water in order to comply with federal and state regulations regarding drinking water supplies.
DEP's process is based on Dissolved Air Flotation with Filtration (DAF/F), a technology that involves a mix of chemicals to produce coagulation, sedimentation, and flocculation.
In addition to the need for a disinfectant, as mandated by federal law, DEP would also use UV as an extra precaution to inactivate any remaining cryptosporidium, a dangerous pathogen particularly to the immune-deficient, the elderly, and the very young.
Besides its exorbitant cost, the plant would require an extensive footprint and also have dire environmental impacts on a neighboring community. DEP decided to use DAF/F back in 1999.
However, in the intervening years, membrane filtration, in particular
“ultrafiltration” is rapidly becoming the technology of choice of drinking water purveyors, replacing DAF/F.
In 2001, there were 20 DAF/F plants operating in the US. Only five of them were built between 1999-2001. In 2001, there were 80 membrane plants operating in the US, counting only microfiltration and ultrafiltation facilities. Sixty of those plants were built between 1999-2001.
Plans for a 250 million gallon per day (mgd) plant are being considered in Portland, Oregon - close to the 290 mgd for the Croton.
In 2004, there are, at least, 120 ultrafiltration and microfiltration facilities, while the number of DAF/F plants appears to have remained constant.
There are solid reasons for the rapidly increasingly popularity of membrane filtration. A membrane filtration facility would require about only 1/6th the space of a DAF/F plant. Specifically, for the Croton, this would allow wide flexibility in the choice of a site without the need to use parkland as is now the case.
Membrane filtration would require significantly fewer chemicals in the pretreatment process. The cost has decreased dramatically, with present costs per gallon of filtered of water being well below the cost of DAF/F.Most important, the final product of a membrane filtration plant is superior in terms of safety to DAF/F plant.
The small pores of a membrane act as an absolute barrier against cryptosporidium, giardia and other pathogens. That is not the case with DAF/F.Unfortunately, DEP appears committed to DAF/F. Before the point of no return point is reached, we would like to create an opportunity for discussions with them.
An informed public is our best guarantee that they will listen. We have been talking with some of the country's top experts in the field of membrane filtration, and have asked Professor Audrey Levine, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida, in Tampa, to come and talk to us on the subject.
Her areas of expertise include drinking water treatment systems; wastewater reclamation and reuse; disinfection chemistry and microbiology; membrane processes; groundwater recharge, scale and corrosion control; reactivity of particulate and macromolecular associated contaminants, and water quality modeling. She has published a long list of research papers.
Professor Levine was selected to audit several water utilities in Florida. We very much hope that you will attend the lecture and let us have the benefit of your thoughts and expertise at this critical juncture.
The future of New York City depends, to a large extent, on being able to supply its residents and the greater metropolitan area with safe, clean and affordable drinking water. We should not miss the opportunity to examine all options to accomplish this.
Marian H. Rose, PresidentCWCWCPlease visit our website:
www.newyorkwater.org
Date: 10/1/2004 3:25:49 PM GMT Daylight Time
From: MarianR451
A REMINDER
The Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition cordially invites you to attend a lecture byProfessor Audrey Levine, Ph.D., who will speak on Membrane Filtration and its Applications to the NYC Drinking Water Supply
Date: Monday, October 18, 2004
Time: 5 PM
Place: The Roger Smith Hotel/ Winthrop Room
501 Lexington Avenue at 47th Street
RSVP: Please call Wendy: at 914 234-6470
or Marian: at 914 234- 3179
Please respond no later than Friday, October 15 to let us know that you will
be attending the lecture.Thank you
As you know, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is planning to build $1.5 billion chemical treatment/filtration plant for Croton water in order to comply with federal and state regulations regarding drinking water supplies.
DEP's process is based on Dissolved Air Flotation with Filtration (DAF/F), a technology that involves a mix of chemicals to produce coagulation, sedimentation, and flocculation.
In addition to the need for a disinfectant, as mandated by federal law, DEP would also use UV as an extra precaution to inactivate any remaining cryptosporidium, a dangerous pathogen particularly to the immune-deficient, the elderly, and the very young.
Besides its exorbitant cost, the plant would require an extensive footprint and also have dire environmental impacts on a neighboring community. DEP decided to use DAF/F back in 1999.
However, in the intervening years, membrane filtration, in particular
“ultrafiltration” is rapidly becoming the technology of choice of drinking water purveyors, replacing DAF/F.
In 2001, there were 20 DAF/F plants operating in the US. Only five of them were built between 1999-2001. In 2001, there were 80 membrane plants operating in the US, counting only microfiltration and ultrafiltation facilities. Sixty of those plants were built between 1999-2001.
Plans for a 250 million gallon per day (mgd) plant are being considered in Portland, Oregon - close to the 290 mgd for the Croton.
In 2004, there are, at least, 120 ultrafiltration and microfiltration facilities, while the number of DAF/F plants appears to have remained constant.
There are solid reasons for the rapidly increasingly popularity of membrane filtration. A membrane filtration facility would require about only 1/6th the space of a DAF/F plant. Specifically, for the Croton, this would allow wide flexibility in the choice of a site without the need to use parkland as is now the case.
Membrane filtration would require significantly fewer chemicals in the pretreatment process. The cost has decreased dramatically, with present costs per gallon of filtered of water being well below the cost of DAF/F.Most important, the final product of a membrane filtration plant is superior in terms of safety to DAF/F plant.
The small pores of a membrane act as an absolute barrier against cryptosporidium, giardia and other pathogens. That is not the case with DAF/F.Unfortunately, DEP appears committed to DAF/F. Before the point of no return point is reached, we would like to create an opportunity for discussions with them.
An informed public is our best guarantee that they will listen. We have been talking with some of the country's top experts in the field of membrane filtration, and have asked Professor Audrey Levine, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida, in Tampa, to come and talk to us on the subject.
Her areas of expertise include drinking water treatment systems; wastewater reclamation and reuse; disinfection chemistry and microbiology; membrane processes; groundwater recharge, scale and corrosion control; reactivity of particulate and macromolecular associated contaminants, and water quality modeling. She has published a long list of research papers.
Professor Levine was selected to audit several water utilities in Florida. We very much hope that you will attend the lecture and let us have the benefit of your thoughts and expertise at this critical juncture.
The future of New York City depends, to a large extent, on being able to supply its residents and the greater metropolitan area with safe, clean and affordable drinking water. We should not miss the opportunity to examine all options to accomplish this.
Marian H. Rose, PresidentCWCWCPlease visit our website:
www.newyorkwater.org
So Long, Morningside Heights
Opinion
So Long, Morningside Heights
By Tao Tan
October 07, 2004
Last Friday, the 116th and Broadway gates were the site of a protest against Columbia’s plans to expand into Manhattanville. As I walked by, I stopped for a few minutes to observe the participants, read a few flyers, and take in the message.
“Biotech no! Housing yes!” chanted protestors. “Gentrification kills neighborhoods!” blared signs.
I was initially overwhelmed by the sheer volume of hatred and vitriol being spewed—hatred that was blind, and vitriol that was misguided. To them, Columbia wasn’t the Alma Mater we know and love; it was a greedy, land-grabbing, elitist nightmare of a neighbor that would stop at nothing to annex more lebensraum.
In that sea of hate, I hatched a brilliant plan that would solve all our problems. We need to expand. They hate us and don’t want us to expand. Solution? We leave.
That’s right. We leave. We relocate Columbia University, brick-by-brick, to Westchester County or Long Island. Land there is cheap and plentiful. We wouldn’t need to deal with the multitudes of community boards and zoning laws that building in the city would require. The Long Island Rail Road or Metro-North could provide efficient transit in and out of the city. Finally, a college campus in the countryside would at last provide the collegiate experience and foster the strong student-school connections that have evaded Columbia for the last 250 years.
No one denies that we have space issues: whereas Stanford University has its own particle accelerator, and Duke University has its own forest, our junior faculty have to share offices. Out there in the country, we can build the ultramodern research facilities that we need to remain on the cutting edge of the world’s universities. We can build a stadium that isn’t half an hour away from the campus. We can construct library facilities large enough to house the entirety of our holdings, instead of storing a sizable chunk off-site at, of all places, Princeton University.
When we leave, we level Morningside Heights. We open up 116th Street to traffic, and along the way, toss in 119th, 118th, 117th, and 115th Streets. Let’s even lend a hand to build those housing projects that the community groups so loudly demand.
Of course, with the removal of Columbia University from Morningside Heights, certain sacrifices will have to be made. For example, the $60 million that Columbia spends per year on Upper Manhattan vendors would be gone, as would the estimated 5,000 jobs Columbia provides for residents of Upper Manhattan. Columbia’s latest round of construction spending, estimated at over $800 million, will also regretfully be withdrawn. Services like the Architecture School’s Urban Technical Assistance Program, the Business School’s Small Business Consulting Program, and Lerner Hall’s Double Discovery Center would be shut down. And it goes without saying that the entire $2 billion operating budget, much of which is a direct injection into New York City’s economy, would be put to use elsewhere.
But the benefits clearly outweigh the sacrifices. Even though the entire corridor of businesses running from 110th to 120th on Broadway and Amsterdam, which draw the majority of their business from the 20,000 students (7,500 residential undergraduates) and over 10,000 faculty and staff, would have to close, the absence of Columbia’s gentrifying effect would more than offset that by depreciating property values and further entrenching rent control.
And to even get into Manhattanville would be silly. After all, who needs $4.5 billion worth of economic stimulus? Who needs a blighted, industrial area far underutilized compared to other city areas to be redeveloped to draw in hundreds of millions of dollars of research money? Who needs close to 9,000 new jobs? Not Manhattanville, of course.
So let’s pack up and move to the countryside. Let’s take our money, our commerce, our potential, and our ambitions with us into greener pastures and brighter prospects. Let’s lend a hand to build the rent-controlled housing projects that we will leave behind in a testament to the realpolitik of Columbia bad, community good.
That, after all, should make everyone happy.
The author is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in history and economics.
So Long, Morningside Heights
By Tao Tan
October 07, 2004
Last Friday, the 116th and Broadway gates were the site of a protest against Columbia’s plans to expand into Manhattanville. As I walked by, I stopped for a few minutes to observe the participants, read a few flyers, and take in the message.
“Biotech no! Housing yes!” chanted protestors. “Gentrification kills neighborhoods!” blared signs.
I was initially overwhelmed by the sheer volume of hatred and vitriol being spewed—hatred that was blind, and vitriol that was misguided. To them, Columbia wasn’t the Alma Mater we know and love; it was a greedy, land-grabbing, elitist nightmare of a neighbor that would stop at nothing to annex more lebensraum.
In that sea of hate, I hatched a brilliant plan that would solve all our problems. We need to expand. They hate us and don’t want us to expand. Solution? We leave.
That’s right. We leave. We relocate Columbia University, brick-by-brick, to Westchester County or Long Island. Land there is cheap and plentiful. We wouldn’t need to deal with the multitudes of community boards and zoning laws that building in the city would require. The Long Island Rail Road or Metro-North could provide efficient transit in and out of the city. Finally, a college campus in the countryside would at last provide the collegiate experience and foster the strong student-school connections that have evaded Columbia for the last 250 years.
No one denies that we have space issues: whereas Stanford University has its own particle accelerator, and Duke University has its own forest, our junior faculty have to share offices. Out there in the country, we can build the ultramodern research facilities that we need to remain on the cutting edge of the world’s universities. We can build a stadium that isn’t half an hour away from the campus. We can construct library facilities large enough to house the entirety of our holdings, instead of storing a sizable chunk off-site at, of all places, Princeton University.
When we leave, we level Morningside Heights. We open up 116th Street to traffic, and along the way, toss in 119th, 118th, 117th, and 115th Streets. Let’s even lend a hand to build those housing projects that the community groups so loudly demand.
Of course, with the removal of Columbia University from Morningside Heights, certain sacrifices will have to be made. For example, the $60 million that Columbia spends per year on Upper Manhattan vendors would be gone, as would the estimated 5,000 jobs Columbia provides for residents of Upper Manhattan. Columbia’s latest round of construction spending, estimated at over $800 million, will also regretfully be withdrawn. Services like the Architecture School’s Urban Technical Assistance Program, the Business School’s Small Business Consulting Program, and Lerner Hall’s Double Discovery Center would be shut down. And it goes without saying that the entire $2 billion operating budget, much of which is a direct injection into New York City’s economy, would be put to use elsewhere.
But the benefits clearly outweigh the sacrifices. Even though the entire corridor of businesses running from 110th to 120th on Broadway and Amsterdam, which draw the majority of their business from the 20,000 students (7,500 residential undergraduates) and over 10,000 faculty and staff, would have to close, the absence of Columbia’s gentrifying effect would more than offset that by depreciating property values and further entrenching rent control.
And to even get into Manhattanville would be silly. After all, who needs $4.5 billion worth of economic stimulus? Who needs a blighted, industrial area far underutilized compared to other city areas to be redeveloped to draw in hundreds of millions of dollars of research money? Who needs close to 9,000 new jobs? Not Manhattanville, of course.
So let’s pack up and move to the countryside. Let’s take our money, our commerce, our potential, and our ambitions with us into greener pastures and brighter prospects. Let’s lend a hand to build the rent-controlled housing projects that we will leave behind in a testament to the realpolitik of Columbia bad, community good.
That, after all, should make everyone happy.
The author is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in history and economics.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Reminder: Open House New York this weekend.
Subject: Reminder: Open House New York this weekend.
Date: 10/5/2004 10:15:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Erikeith
Reply To:
To:
CC:
BCC: Reysmont
Just a reminder, for those with free time and an inclination to roam, the world is scheduled to be your oyster this weekend.
Visit the Open House New York (http://www.openhousenewyork.org/ohny_website/weekend.html) website to see the line-up borough by borough.
Alas, so many sites, so little time.Eric
Date: 10/5/2004 10:15:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Erikeith
Reply To:
To:
CC:
BCC: Reysmont
Just a reminder, for those with free time and an inclination to roam, the world is scheduled to be your oyster this weekend.
Visit the Open House New York (http://www.openhousenewyork.org/ohny_website/weekend.html) website to see the line-up borough by borough.
Alas, so many sites, so little time.Eric
Bidding Wars - HUD Auctions off buildings for seniors & disabled
Click here: http://citylimits.org/content/articles/weeklyView.cfm?articlenumber=1600
City Limits WEEKLY
Week of: October 4, 2004
Number: 454
BIDDING WAR
HUD auctions off building for seniors and disabled to landlord with sketchy past.
By Cassi Feldman and Sarah Unke
Going once. Going twice. Sold. Those words may bring a dangerous twist to the lives of senior and disabled residents at the Bronx Center for Independent Living. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development just auctioned off their building to a known scofflaw.
Last July, HUD shocked tenants and city officials alike by selling Pueblo de Mayaguez, a distressed 75-unit apartment complex, to Emmanuel Ku, a Queens-based landlord with more than 1,400 outstanding code violations. Now, a year later, Pueblo residents are already reporting broken windows and roaches.
Ten more federally subsidized buildings are already in foreclosure and at risk for auction. To help protect tenants, Congress passed an amendment to its 2004 appropriations bill, requiring purchasers of HUD-owned property to be “in substantial compliance with applicable State or local government housing statutes, regulations, ordinances and codes.” The city, also concerned, has outlined a "Property Disposition Program" that would allow it to purchase HUD-held mortgages at negotiated price.
But neither of those efforts could stop Juan F. Frias from submitting a winning bid of $1.69 million to purchase the Bronx Center, a 21-unit building located at 1310 Morris Avenue. (The second-highest bid came from Ku.) Although the property must be kept affordable, tenant activists worry that Frias won’t manage it properly.
According to the city’s housing records, Frias owns another building at 302 East 139th Street with 90 pending code violations, including inadequate heat, hot water and gas. Of those violations, 38 are class C, the most serious.
Frias did not respond to several calls seeking comment.
“These auctions are not an appropriate way to handle distressed buildings,” said Anne Lessy, director of New York City organizing for Tenants and Neighbors, an advocacy group. “Tenants are losing and speculators are winning and responsible owners are being shut out of the process.”
This isn’t the first time Frias has hit a public auction. He first acquired 302 East 139th Street from the city in 1989 for $124,000. Carol Abrams, spokesperson for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, said the city is in the midst of an exhaustive review to assess whether buildings it has sold off in recent years are still in compliance with city codes.
On September 28, HPD sent HUD a letter alerting the agency to Frias’ violations. “HUD has the right to refuse to sell,” said Abrams. “It will be HUD’s determination to make.” HUD declined to share its plans. “The city of New York has raised a number of issues with us, which we are reviewing,” said spokesperson Adam Glantz.
Meanwhile, the building’s residents, who lack a formal tenant organization, seem to be largely in the dark. “They didn’t tell us anything about that yet,” said one tenant, who declined to be named. “They just told us there’s a possibility this building might be sold.”
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SUBSCRIBE to City Limits
Got comments, tips, questions or corrections for City Limits editors? Contact editor@citylimits.org.
City Limits WEEKLY
Week of: October 4, 2004
Number: 454
BIDDING WAR
HUD auctions off building for seniors and disabled to landlord with sketchy past.
By Cassi Feldman and Sarah Unke
Going once. Going twice. Sold. Those words may bring a dangerous twist to the lives of senior and disabled residents at the Bronx Center for Independent Living. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development just auctioned off their building to a known scofflaw.
Last July, HUD shocked tenants and city officials alike by selling Pueblo de Mayaguez, a distressed 75-unit apartment complex, to Emmanuel Ku, a Queens-based landlord with more than 1,400 outstanding code violations. Now, a year later, Pueblo residents are already reporting broken windows and roaches.
Ten more federally subsidized buildings are already in foreclosure and at risk for auction. To help protect tenants, Congress passed an amendment to its 2004 appropriations bill, requiring purchasers of HUD-owned property to be “in substantial compliance with applicable State or local government housing statutes, regulations, ordinances and codes.” The city, also concerned, has outlined a "Property Disposition Program" that would allow it to purchase HUD-held mortgages at negotiated price.
But neither of those efforts could stop Juan F. Frias from submitting a winning bid of $1.69 million to purchase the Bronx Center, a 21-unit building located at 1310 Morris Avenue. (The second-highest bid came from Ku.) Although the property must be kept affordable, tenant activists worry that Frias won’t manage it properly.
According to the city’s housing records, Frias owns another building at 302 East 139th Street with 90 pending code violations, including inadequate heat, hot water and gas. Of those violations, 38 are class C, the most serious.
Frias did not respond to several calls seeking comment.
“These auctions are not an appropriate way to handle distressed buildings,” said Anne Lessy, director of New York City organizing for Tenants and Neighbors, an advocacy group. “Tenants are losing and speculators are winning and responsible owners are being shut out of the process.”
This isn’t the first time Frias has hit a public auction. He first acquired 302 East 139th Street from the city in 1989 for $124,000. Carol Abrams, spokesperson for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, said the city is in the midst of an exhaustive review to assess whether buildings it has sold off in recent years are still in compliance with city codes.
On September 28, HPD sent HUD a letter alerting the agency to Frias’ violations. “HUD has the right to refuse to sell,” said Abrams. “It will be HUD’s determination to make.” HUD declined to share its plans. “The city of New York has raised a number of issues with us, which we are reviewing,” said spokesperson Adam Glantz.
Meanwhile, the building’s residents, who lack a formal tenant organization, seem to be largely in the dark. “They didn’t tell us anything about that yet,” said one tenant, who declined to be named. “They just told us there’s a possibility this building might be sold.”
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SUBSCRIBE to City Limits
Got comments, tips, questions or corrections for City Limits editors? Contact editor@citylimits.org.
Click here: Columbia Spectator Online - STAFF EDITORIAL: No Unfair Tactics, Please
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/09/29/415a26e87b7d4?in_archive=1
Columbia Spectator Online
Opinion
STAFF EDITORIAL:
No Unfair Tactics, Please
Invoking eminent domain will alienate our neighbors.
September 29, 2004
The air is full of rumors about whether Columbia is asking the city and state governments to help it acquire land for its campus expansion in West Harlem. Concerned businesses are beginning mount a legal defense, and residents are worried about unwelcome intrusions of the 'ivory tower.'
While no one knows just what has happened, one thing remains clear: Columbia must not resort to eminent domain proceedings.
Eminent domain, the power of units of government to seize private property, is meant to be used only for public purposes such as public schools or roads with absolutely no public purpose.
Lamentably, it has come to be employed for many. Private groups routinely seek to have the sledgehammer of eminent domain used to help them acquire property they want to develop.
But there is no reason for Columbia to solicit government assistance for its private campus project, no matter how eager City Hall and Albany may be to provide such assistance. As an educational institution--one that receives millions of dollars in city, state, and federal subsidies--Columbia should uphold the spirit of the Constitution and emphatically reject the use of eminent domain in connection with private projects. It should be held to a higher standard than The New York Times Company, which received property for its new headquarters building through the use of eminent domain.
If Columbia is going to deal honestly with its neighbors, it cannot use its resources to pound them into the ground. The University has a fully staffed Office of Government Affairs, which represents the University"s interests to all levels of government and enjoys access to policymakers. It would be highly unfair for Columbia to use its clout against those who do not have the resources to make their voices heard.
In recent years, Columbia has made several significant compromises with neighborhood residents. It agreed to a huge reduction in the height of Broadway Residence Hall, incorporated a public library into the same building, and moved the site of the School of Social Work"s new building. But the use of eminent domain would be a huge step backwards in Columbia"s efforts to build a reputation as an institution that takes its neighbors seriously. It would show that Columbia is determined to cram a new campus down the throat of West Harlem, come hell or high water.
But contentious relations don"t just hurt private citizens--they hurt the University too. If eminent domain is used for the present construction project, the neighborhood will respond negatively to any future plans Columbia tries to present. Getting the Manhattanville campus will be a Pyrrhic victory if Columbia is effectively prevented from any further expansion projects, no matter how reasonable they may be.
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/09/29/415a26e87b7d4?in_archive=1
Columbia Spectator Online
Opinion
STAFF EDITORIAL:
No Unfair Tactics, Please
Invoking eminent domain will alienate our neighbors.
September 29, 2004
The air is full of rumors about whether Columbia is asking the city and state governments to help it acquire land for its campus expansion in West Harlem. Concerned businesses are beginning mount a legal defense, and residents are worried about unwelcome intrusions of the 'ivory tower.'
While no one knows just what has happened, one thing remains clear: Columbia must not resort to eminent domain proceedings.
Eminent domain, the power of units of government to seize private property, is meant to be used only for public purposes such as public schools or roads with absolutely no public purpose.
Lamentably, it has come to be employed for many. Private groups routinely seek to have the sledgehammer of eminent domain used to help them acquire property they want to develop.
But there is no reason for Columbia to solicit government assistance for its private campus project, no matter how eager City Hall and Albany may be to provide such assistance. As an educational institution--one that receives millions of dollars in city, state, and federal subsidies--Columbia should uphold the spirit of the Constitution and emphatically reject the use of eminent domain in connection with private projects. It should be held to a higher standard than The New York Times Company, which received property for its new headquarters building through the use of eminent domain.
If Columbia is going to deal honestly with its neighbors, it cannot use its resources to pound them into the ground. The University has a fully staffed Office of Government Affairs, which represents the University"s interests to all levels of government and enjoys access to policymakers. It would be highly unfair for Columbia to use its clout against those who do not have the resources to make their voices heard.
In recent years, Columbia has made several significant compromises with neighborhood residents. It agreed to a huge reduction in the height of Broadway Residence Hall, incorporated a public library into the same building, and moved the site of the School of Social Work"s new building. But the use of eminent domain would be a huge step backwards in Columbia"s efforts to build a reputation as an institution that takes its neighbors seriously. It would show that Columbia is determined to cram a new campus down the throat of West Harlem, come hell or high water.
But contentious relations don"t just hurt private citizens--they hurt the University too. If eminent domain is used for the present construction project, the neighborhood will respond negatively to any future plans Columbia tries to present. Getting the Manhattanville campus will be a Pyrrhic victory if Columbia is effectively prevented from any further expansion projects, no matter how reasonable they may be.
Clarification From the Chair - General Distribution to CB9M Members
Subject: Clarification From the Chair - General Distribution to CB9M Members
Date: 10/2/2004 11:57:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Reysmont
To: NYC-CB9M@juno.com
Clarification From the Chair - General Distribution to CB9M Members
distribution to the DM and Public Members and Community Residents.
The following Chair's clarification is for administrative housekeeping purposes and for the general information of the Board Members and the residents of Planning District 9.
Since its inception a number of years ago, the 197-A Plan Committee consisted of all the Committee Chairs, (Co-Chairs and Vice Chairs included), an a small number of "core members" drawn from the Board membership and the Community.
That set-up has never been changed by any of the Board Chairs since its implementation, although seems to have been forgotten and not fully adhered this Board policy remains in effect to this day, and it means that the Committee Chairs participation and attendance is required.
Additionally the full 197-A Plan Committee is also a constituent part of the CB9M Manhattanville Rezoning Committee which also includes the full Housing, Lnad Use and Zoning Commitee and representatives of NYC Dept. of City Planning and the Community.
The "Mission Statement" of the CB9M Manhattanville Rezoning Committee will be made public within a forthnight at the next Executive Committee meeting. The purpose fo the Mission Statement is to, in simple clear language specify the purposes and goals of the CB9M Manhattanville Rezoning Committee.
Jordi (George) Reyes-Montblanc
http://Reysmont@aol.com/
Community Board 9 Manhattan
565 West 125th Street
New York, NY 10027
Tel: (212) 864-6200
Fax: 212-662-7396
E-Mail: http://NYC-CB9M@juno.com/
Web : www.neighborhoodlink.com/manhattan/com9
Web Page: http://www.cb9m.org/
What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom.
Lo que nuestra generación ha olvidado es que el sistema de propiedad privada es la más importante garantÃa de la libertad.
F.A. Hayek
Date: 10/2/2004 11:57:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Reysmont
To: NYC-CB9M@juno.com
Clarification From the Chair - General Distribution to CB9M Members
distribution to the DM and Public Members and Community Residents.
The following Chair's clarification is for administrative housekeeping purposes and for the general information of the Board Members and the residents of Planning District 9.
Since its inception a number of years ago, the 197-A Plan Committee consisted of all the Committee Chairs, (Co-Chairs and Vice Chairs included), an a small number of "core members" drawn from the Board membership and the Community.
That set-up has never been changed by any of the Board Chairs since its implementation, although seems to have been forgotten and not fully adhered this Board policy remains in effect to this day, and it means that the Committee Chairs participation and attendance is required.
Additionally the full 197-A Plan Committee is also a constituent part of the CB9M Manhattanville Rezoning Committee which also includes the full Housing, Lnad Use and Zoning Commitee and representatives of NYC Dept. of City Planning and the Community.
The "Mission Statement" of the CB9M Manhattanville Rezoning Committee will be made public within a forthnight at the next Executive Committee meeting. The purpose fo the Mission Statement is to, in simple clear language specify the purposes and goals of the CB9M Manhattanville Rezoning Committee.
Jordi (George) Reyes-Montblanc
http://Reysmont@aol.com/
Community Board 9 Manhattan
565 West 125th Street
New York, NY 10027
Tel: (212) 864-6200
Fax: 212-662-7396
E-Mail: http://NYC-CB9M@juno.com/
Web : www.neighborhoodlink.com/manhattan/com9
Web Page: http://www.cb9m.org/
What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom.
Lo que nuestra generación ha olvidado es que el sistema de propiedad privada es la más importante garantÃa de la libertad.
F.A. Hayek
Sunday, October 03, 2004
Confiscation Homes
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
Confiscating homes
By Steve ChapmanPublished October 3, 2004
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20041002-102017-6031r.htm
What would you call it if someone forced you to sell your home, even though you didn't want to sell and didn't agree to the price? You would call it theft and phone 911.
But the realm of government is cloaked in terminology designed to hide unpleasant realities. When the government does this, it's called "eminent domain," and it's legal.
Wilhelmina Dery has lived her entire life in the house where she was born in 1918, in a modest section of New London, Conn. But if she hopes to depart this world from the same place she entered it, she will need help from the U.S. Supreme Court. This week, it agreed to decide whether Mrs. Dery and others can be deprived of their homes merely because the city thinks the property could be put to a more lucrative use.
Municipal authorities want to demolish her house, and others, to make room for a commercial development next to the new Pfizer Corp. research headquarters. Most houses in the neighborhood have already been razed, but a few residents have dared insist on staying, despite the inconvenience they cause city planners.
Development backers are not moved by the notion homeowners should be allowed to stand in the way of economic progress. The former head of the New London Development Corp., which oversees the project, offered a reflective defense of the confiscation plan: "Anything that's working in our great nation is working because somebody left skin on the sidewalk."
The U.S. Constitution authorizes eminent domain, as a regrettable necessity. In one sense, the city is using a time-honored instrument of government. What it may have overlooked is that the Fifth Amendment, like most of the Constitution, not only grants power but restricts it.
The amendment says, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." There are two specific conditions: The owner has to be fully compensated, and the property has to be needed for public use. The provision means, when the government decides to build a road, create a national forest or erect an Army base where you live, it can condemn your home as long as it's willing to pay a fair price for it.
In this case, though, there is no "public use." The city is simply confiscating private property from one set of owners so it can give it to another set. The rationale is the seizure will "reverse decades of economic decline, create thousands of jobs and significantly increase property taxes and other sources of revenue for the city." Unlike a road or a military base, the anticipated economic and revenue growth are not a tangible certainty but a speculative hope.
The Connecticut Supreme Court, however, took what it called "a flexible approach" to the concept of public use, giving "substantial deference to the legislative determination of purpose." English translation: If the city says a private use is a public use, who are we to quibble?
But if this sort of redevelopment can pass through the eye of the needle, make way for a herd of camels. "Using eminent domain for 'economic development' alone is a new phenomenon," says the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm representing Ms. Dery and other aggrieved homeowners. "Usually governments try to at least claim that the area is a 'slum' or 'blighted,' but Connecticut has dispensed with that pretense and admits outright that if another business could make a profit on your land, the government can take it."
Under this reading, the public-use restriction amounts to no restriction at all. "Whose land wouldn't produce more taxes if it were an office building instead of a home?" asks the Institute for Justice. Nice house you have there. Wouldn't it be the perfect site for a shopping mall?
Politically powerful developers throughout the country would be free to use their connections to acquire land for their own profit -- even if the owners refuse to sell. And some municipal governments would happily indulge them, while claiming to serve the needs of the public.
The U.S. Supreme Court should recognize the public use requirement is a sturdy barrier against government power bursting its bounds. Allowing Connecticut's "flexible approach" would be the equivalent of replacing the Hoover Dam with a picket fence.
Steve Chapman is a nationally syndicated columnist.
www.washingtontimes.com
Confiscating homes
By Steve ChapmanPublished October 3, 2004
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20041002-102017-6031r.htm
What would you call it if someone forced you to sell your home, even though you didn't want to sell and didn't agree to the price? You would call it theft and phone 911.
But the realm of government is cloaked in terminology designed to hide unpleasant realities. When the government does this, it's called "eminent domain," and it's legal.
Wilhelmina Dery has lived her entire life in the house where she was born in 1918, in a modest section of New London, Conn. But if she hopes to depart this world from the same place she entered it, she will need help from the U.S. Supreme Court. This week, it agreed to decide whether Mrs. Dery and others can be deprived of their homes merely because the city thinks the property could be put to a more lucrative use.
Municipal authorities want to demolish her house, and others, to make room for a commercial development next to the new Pfizer Corp. research headquarters. Most houses in the neighborhood have already been razed, but a few residents have dared insist on staying, despite the inconvenience they cause city planners.
Development backers are not moved by the notion homeowners should be allowed to stand in the way of economic progress. The former head of the New London Development Corp., which oversees the project, offered a reflective defense of the confiscation plan: "Anything that's working in our great nation is working because somebody left skin on the sidewalk."
The U.S. Constitution authorizes eminent domain, as a regrettable necessity. In one sense, the city is using a time-honored instrument of government. What it may have overlooked is that the Fifth Amendment, like most of the Constitution, not only grants power but restricts it.
The amendment says, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." There are two specific conditions: The owner has to be fully compensated, and the property has to be needed for public use. The provision means, when the government decides to build a road, create a national forest or erect an Army base where you live, it can condemn your home as long as it's willing to pay a fair price for it.
In this case, though, there is no "public use." The city is simply confiscating private property from one set of owners so it can give it to another set. The rationale is the seizure will "reverse decades of economic decline, create thousands of jobs and significantly increase property taxes and other sources of revenue for the city." Unlike a road or a military base, the anticipated economic and revenue growth are not a tangible certainty but a speculative hope.
The Connecticut Supreme Court, however, took what it called "a flexible approach" to the concept of public use, giving "substantial deference to the legislative determination of purpose." English translation: If the city says a private use is a public use, who are we to quibble?
But if this sort of redevelopment can pass through the eye of the needle, make way for a herd of camels. "Using eminent domain for 'economic development' alone is a new phenomenon," says the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm representing Ms. Dery and other aggrieved homeowners. "Usually governments try to at least claim that the area is a 'slum' or 'blighted,' but Connecticut has dispensed with that pretense and admits outright that if another business could make a profit on your land, the government can take it."
Under this reading, the public-use restriction amounts to no restriction at all. "Whose land wouldn't produce more taxes if it were an office building instead of a home?" asks the Institute for Justice. Nice house you have there. Wouldn't it be the perfect site for a shopping mall?
Politically powerful developers throughout the country would be free to use their connections to acquire land for their own profit -- even if the owners refuse to sell. And some municipal governments would happily indulge them, while claiming to serve the needs of the public.
The U.S. Supreme Court should recognize the public use requirement is a sturdy barrier against government power bursting its bounds. Allowing Connecticut's "flexible approach" would be the equivalent of replacing the Hoover Dam with a picket fence.
Steve Chapman is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Friday, October 01, 2004
As It Seeks More Room, Columbia Treads Carefully
Click here: The Chronicle: 10/1/2004: As It Seeks More Room, Columbia Treads Carefully
http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i06/06a02901.htm
From the issue dated October 1, 2004
http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i06/06a02901.htm
As It Seeks More Room, Columbia Treads Carefully
A planned $5-billion development in neighboring Harlem reawakens old animosities
By AUDREY WILLIAMS JUNE
New York
Columbia University would seem to have it all: Top-shelf professors. Students skimmed from the upper percentiles of their high-school classes. An Ivy League pedigree. A 36-acre campus in what many deem the world's greatest city. And a $4.3-billion endowment.
What it doesn't have is space.
Located on one of the most crowded and affluent islands in the world, Columbia is feeling squeezed. At least a half-dozen of its peer institutions (which include, for this reckoning, Berkeley, Stanford, and the University of Michigan) have campuses that offer more than twice the square footage per student, Columbia's officials say. A concern for many years, the university's space constraints are beginning to threaten the institution's reputation for excellence, top administrators say. The university's president, Lee C. Bollinger, has made it clear that a solution must be found on his watch.
"To fulfill our responsibilities and aspirations," Mr. Bollinger said in his inaugural address in 2002, "Columbia must expand significantly over the next decade."
To that end, Columbia has proposed a $5-billion campus expansion that would claim 18 acres of Harlem real estate. Columbia's ambition, though, has collided with a local strain of New York skepticism and mistrust that has festered for most of the past four decades. Mindful of past slights by the university, a vocal faction of Harlem residents is adamantly opposed to Columbia's growth plan.
In Harlem, where jobs and affordable housing are scarce and gentrification is rampant, Columbia's attempts to tread carefully as it pieces together the multibillion-dollar expansion have received mixed reactions. Some say that Columbia is set on erasing their West Harlem neighborhood. And many don't believe that Columbia will follow through on its promises to compensate the community with thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in new economic activity.
Columbia's dilemma in many ways mirrors tensions nationwide between urban universities and the neighborhoods that surround them. Like much in New York, though, the stage here is larger, and the stakes are higher. Opponents of the expansion plan have a say in whether the city grants Columbia's request to rezone the site of its intended growth. That rezoning is the linchpin of the entire undertaking and would allow Columbia to build the mixed-use high-rises envisioned for the new campus. If Columbia can't win over the opposition, it may have to revamp, or even scrap, its plans.
Mr. Bollinger and others acknowledge the possibility that Columbia might not prevail.
"Columbia has a history with this community, and many people in this community could care less about what Columbia wants," says Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, chairman of Manhattan Community Board 9, a New York City Council advisory group that represents the district that includes the Columbia expansion site. "Columbia has to convince the community that what they want to do is beneficial to the community."
A Legacy of Distrust
The intractable distrust that exists between Columbia and Harlem first crystallized in a flash of anger and resentment in 1968.
Columbia had proposed building a gymnasium in Harlem with separate entrances: one for the mostly white students of Columbia, and another for the mostly black residents of Harlem.
At the time, Columbia students were already angry about the institution's membership in a consortium of universities that did research for the U.S. Department of Defense. A protest at the site of the proposed gym turned into a sit-in at Columbia's Hamilton Hall and finally grew into a weeklong takeover of five buildings on the campus by about 800 students and their supporters. Hundreds of people were arrested and more than 100 were injured, according to press reports at the time. The gym opened elsewhere six years after the protest.
Also in the 1960s, Columbia built a faculty-apartment complex whose front door faces away from Harlem.
In the 1980s the university snapped up local apartment buildings to alleviate a student-housing shortage -- which triggered evictions in the neighborhood and heightened town-gown tensions.
A more recent faux pas: A year ago, Columbia opened an elementary school for the children of its faculty and used a lottery system to admit neighborhood students. But at the last minute, school administrators filled four openings with students who hadn't entered the lottery, triggering a local outcry.Mr. Bollinger, well aware of the strained relations between Columbia and Harlem, says the institution has to "put the ghost of the gymnasium behind it." So this time around, Columbia has been taking its time and trying to do things right.
The Search for Space
Over the last decade or so, Columbia has scouted the New York area for room to grow. It looked in the suburbs and at land on the West Side of Manhattan that is owned by the real-estate magnate Donald Trump. Columbia, the city's eighth-largest employer, also thought about putting up new buildings wherever it could find room in the city.
But shortly after Mr. Bollinger became president, the West Harlem sector called Manhattanville, near where Columbia's limestone campus has been since 1897, won out. The proposed northward expansion, Columbia officials reasoned, could serve as a link between the university's main campus and its health-sciences complex about two miles north.
"My belief is that the strongest universities are those that are mostly contiguous," Mr. Bollinger says. "Psychologically, this is our home."
To strengthen its claims, Columbia has for several years been circulating a document that shows how its crowded campus puts the institution at a competitive disadvantage. Columbia, the document says, has 326 square feet per student, while Princeton, Yale, and Stanford offer 800 or more square feet per student.
Meanwhile, Columbia has put unprecedented energy into cultivating community support for its growth plans. The university formed a 38-member community-advisory committee in early 2003 to consult with administrators about the expansion. Faculty and student committees were formed as well. The university has also held town-hall meetings.
"We knew we couldn't treat this as business as usual," Mr. Bollinger says.
To counter the mistrust, Columbia has been forthcoming about its plans, says Robert A. McCaughey, a history professor at Barnard College and author of Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York.
"I think the strategy of the earlier administrations, after making some passing efforts at community relations, was to just go ahead and do it," says Mr. McCaughey of putting up new buildings at Columbia. "For Bollinger to have laid out a 30-year plan, that is very different from Columbia announcing that the construction team will be there on Tuesday."
Harlem's "second renaissance," which began over the last decade and spawned a retail mecca of sorts on 125th Street, has largely bypassed Manhattanville. That made it an easy target for Columbia, which wanted to expand on a grand scale.
The land Columbia is eyeing for a tree-lined extension of its campus is a mostly industrial area of roughly five city blocks that is bordered by an elevated subway track, a highway viaduct, and two housing complexes. It is a gritty swath of warehouses, auto-repair shops, and car washes -- a testament to the area's having been zoned for manufacturing. Residences, which house mostly working-class people of color, are few. The university says 140 legal apartments, one-third of which are not occupied, are affected by its plans.
Zoned for Manufacturing
The site is home to two neighborhood institutions: La Floridita, a Cuban restaurant, and Fairway, a mega-grocery store on the Hudson River waterfront. People can often be seen casting their lines for fish just off the store's parking lot. Both neighborhood landmarks would remain after the expansion, Columbia officials say, although La Floridita would get a new location.
The first phase of the 30-year expansion, to be completed over a decade, would include building a new School of the Arts and a science building, which Columbia says it desperately needs to keep attracting top researchers, professors, and students.
"Our science building is four or five decades old," says Jeremiah Stoldt, director of campus planning. "Those types of restraints don't really lend themselves to cutting-edge research."
Columbia's plans for the first phase also call for setting aside 200,000 square feet of space in the ground floors of some buildings for retail that would serve the campus and the community. The university says it is too soon to know what construction will come next.
Columbia has been buying land in Manhattanville over the last year or so. Officials say the university now owns or leases about half the land it wants to develop. It is negotiating to buy the remaining property. For property that it can't buy -- and some owners are indeed holding their ground -- Columbia would have to turn to the state to help it get the land through eminent domain. It is an option the institution has not publicly ruled out.
"I think we want to go in with the assumption that we can buy everything we need," Mr. Stoldt says.
For all of its attempts to do things right this time around, Columbia still faces entrenched opposition. Some people like Maritta Dunn, a member of Community Board 9 and a Manhattanville resident of 44 years, says Columbia hasn't learned much in the 36 years since the massive student protest.
Ms. Dunn says Columbia's refusal to say that it will not use eminent domain to oust property owners from their land kills the spirit of partnership that the university says it wants with Harlem. And she is not impressed with Columbia's outreach efforts, dubbing them a "public relations" ploy at best.
Mr. Reyes-Montblanc, the Community Board 9 chairman, says that sentiment is somewhat widespread.
"My problem with Columbia is they use the same format over and over again," says Ms. Dunn, who also leads the Harlem Valley Heights Community Development Corporation. "They definitely need to expand, but this doesn't require them sucking up a whole neighborhood. The plan as it stands is ambitious -- to be nice. And invasive -- to be real."
Columbia officials have "been making a tremendous effort to communicate what they want," Mr. Reyes-Montblanc says. "But there is a sense in the community that the communication is one way."
Local activists have become increasingly vocal in their opposition.
"We're just simply trying to do our best to build a coalition that will make it clear to Columbia that we don't want their expansion in our neighborhood," says Tom DeMott, a founder of the Coalition to Preserve Community. The coalition exists, Mr. DeMott says, "to attempt to defend the neighborhood from what we see as a tremendous onslaught on the community to push out longtime residents and businesses."
Mr. Bollinger says he knows there will be "people who will continue to oppose" the institution's expansion plans no matter what.
The community's frustration spilled over at an April meeting, attended by more than 150 people, in which the university officially unveiled its expansion plans. As if making an academic presentation, Columbia officials turned to a sprawling three-dimensional model of the project, stacks of paperwork, and a polished PowerPoint presentation to pull everything together. Mr. Bollinger stood before the crowd to speak.
When he finished, members of the audience peppered him with pointed questions, revealing their skepticism about the project and the university's intentions. "I felt they were denouncing me and denouncing Columbia," Mr. Bollinger says of the meeting, which was held by Community Board 9.
'Palatable' Opposition
The neighborhood, however, is by no means monolithic in its opposition. Barbara Hohol, a local activist and self-described "wide-eyed moderate" says she believes that Columbia has good intentions to be a part of the community.
The expansion, Ms. Hohol says, should be "more palatable" because it is not imminent -- thanks to the 30-year timetable that the university has for the project. "But I do think their feet should be held to the fire," says Ms. Hohol.
More palatable still, Columbia has promised that the expansion would create 9,000 new jobs and pour $4-billion into New York's economy. Columbia also says it will provide minority construction contracts and the relocation of businesses and residents.
But in Manhattanville, Columbia's word is not enough.
The community advisory committee, in a report it produced in June, recommended that such promises be put in writing. Other neighbors are pushing to get the university to sign a community-benefits agreement as well. Such a document, which Columbia isn't obligated to sign, would outline more specifically how Harlem would be improved because of the project.
The advisory committee's report recommended that Columbia provide job training for the new positions it plans to provide, play a role in the development of affordable housing, preserve more of the area's historic landmarks, and improve the quality of education in the schools surrounding its campus, among other things.
"I do think they have to make some assurances that the jobs created will be to the extent possible filled by people in the neighborhood ... and not just simply Ph.D.'s from other parts of the country," Mr. McCaughey says.
Columbia appears to be reluctant to sign such a contract, saying that doing so would bind the hands of future administrations.
"I think they are perplexed and divided over the issue of a community-benefits agreement," says Joseph Wilson, a Columbia alumnus and director of the Graduate Center for Worker Education at Brooklyn College who helped write the committee's report. "There are some who would like to see a pledge and others who are more cautious to committing the university to anything in writing."
Mr. Reyes-Montblanc, chairman of one of the handful of governmental entities that will have a say in Columbia's rezoning request, says a community-benefits agreement is key.
"The rezoning they will receive is dependent on that," Mr. Reyes-Montblanc says. "Most people in the community are not against developing the area. The question is whether what Columbia is proposing is the best solution."
http://chronicle.com/
Section: Money & ManagementVolume 51, Issue 6, Page A29
http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i06/06a02901.htm
From the issue dated October 1, 2004
http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i06/06a02901.htm
As It Seeks More Room, Columbia Treads Carefully
A planned $5-billion development in neighboring Harlem reawakens old animosities
By AUDREY WILLIAMS JUNE
New York
Columbia University would seem to have it all: Top-shelf professors. Students skimmed from the upper percentiles of their high-school classes. An Ivy League pedigree. A 36-acre campus in what many deem the world's greatest city. And a $4.3-billion endowment.
What it doesn't have is space.
Located on one of the most crowded and affluent islands in the world, Columbia is feeling squeezed. At least a half-dozen of its peer institutions (which include, for this reckoning, Berkeley, Stanford, and the University of Michigan) have campuses that offer more than twice the square footage per student, Columbia's officials say. A concern for many years, the university's space constraints are beginning to threaten the institution's reputation for excellence, top administrators say. The university's president, Lee C. Bollinger, has made it clear that a solution must be found on his watch.
"To fulfill our responsibilities and aspirations," Mr. Bollinger said in his inaugural address in 2002, "Columbia must expand significantly over the next decade."
To that end, Columbia has proposed a $5-billion campus expansion that would claim 18 acres of Harlem real estate. Columbia's ambition, though, has collided with a local strain of New York skepticism and mistrust that has festered for most of the past four decades. Mindful of past slights by the university, a vocal faction of Harlem residents is adamantly opposed to Columbia's growth plan.
In Harlem, where jobs and affordable housing are scarce and gentrification is rampant, Columbia's attempts to tread carefully as it pieces together the multibillion-dollar expansion have received mixed reactions. Some say that Columbia is set on erasing their West Harlem neighborhood. And many don't believe that Columbia will follow through on its promises to compensate the community with thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in new economic activity.
Columbia's dilemma in many ways mirrors tensions nationwide between urban universities and the neighborhoods that surround them. Like much in New York, though, the stage here is larger, and the stakes are higher. Opponents of the expansion plan have a say in whether the city grants Columbia's request to rezone the site of its intended growth. That rezoning is the linchpin of the entire undertaking and would allow Columbia to build the mixed-use high-rises envisioned for the new campus. If Columbia can't win over the opposition, it may have to revamp, or even scrap, its plans.
Mr. Bollinger and others acknowledge the possibility that Columbia might not prevail.
"Columbia has a history with this community, and many people in this community could care less about what Columbia wants," says Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, chairman of Manhattan Community Board 9, a New York City Council advisory group that represents the district that includes the Columbia expansion site. "Columbia has to convince the community that what they want to do is beneficial to the community."
A Legacy of Distrust
The intractable distrust that exists between Columbia and Harlem first crystallized in a flash of anger and resentment in 1968.
Columbia had proposed building a gymnasium in Harlem with separate entrances: one for the mostly white students of Columbia, and another for the mostly black residents of Harlem.
At the time, Columbia students were already angry about the institution's membership in a consortium of universities that did research for the U.S. Department of Defense. A protest at the site of the proposed gym turned into a sit-in at Columbia's Hamilton Hall and finally grew into a weeklong takeover of five buildings on the campus by about 800 students and their supporters. Hundreds of people were arrested and more than 100 were injured, according to press reports at the time. The gym opened elsewhere six years after the protest.
Also in the 1960s, Columbia built a faculty-apartment complex whose front door faces away from Harlem.
In the 1980s the university snapped up local apartment buildings to alleviate a student-housing shortage -- which triggered evictions in the neighborhood and heightened town-gown tensions.
A more recent faux pas: A year ago, Columbia opened an elementary school for the children of its faculty and used a lottery system to admit neighborhood students. But at the last minute, school administrators filled four openings with students who hadn't entered the lottery, triggering a local outcry.Mr. Bollinger, well aware of the strained relations between Columbia and Harlem, says the institution has to "put the ghost of the gymnasium behind it." So this time around, Columbia has been taking its time and trying to do things right.
The Search for Space
Over the last decade or so, Columbia has scouted the New York area for room to grow. It looked in the suburbs and at land on the West Side of Manhattan that is owned by the real-estate magnate Donald Trump. Columbia, the city's eighth-largest employer, also thought about putting up new buildings wherever it could find room in the city.
But shortly after Mr. Bollinger became president, the West Harlem sector called Manhattanville, near where Columbia's limestone campus has been since 1897, won out. The proposed northward expansion, Columbia officials reasoned, could serve as a link between the university's main campus and its health-sciences complex about two miles north.
"My belief is that the strongest universities are those that are mostly contiguous," Mr. Bollinger says. "Psychologically, this is our home."
To strengthen its claims, Columbia has for several years been circulating a document that shows how its crowded campus puts the institution at a competitive disadvantage. Columbia, the document says, has 326 square feet per student, while Princeton, Yale, and Stanford offer 800 or more square feet per student.
Meanwhile, Columbia has put unprecedented energy into cultivating community support for its growth plans. The university formed a 38-member community-advisory committee in early 2003 to consult with administrators about the expansion. Faculty and student committees were formed as well. The university has also held town-hall meetings.
"We knew we couldn't treat this as business as usual," Mr. Bollinger says.
To counter the mistrust, Columbia has been forthcoming about its plans, says Robert A. McCaughey, a history professor at Barnard College and author of Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York.
"I think the strategy of the earlier administrations, after making some passing efforts at community relations, was to just go ahead and do it," says Mr. McCaughey of putting up new buildings at Columbia. "For Bollinger to have laid out a 30-year plan, that is very different from Columbia announcing that the construction team will be there on Tuesday."
Harlem's "second renaissance," which began over the last decade and spawned a retail mecca of sorts on 125th Street, has largely bypassed Manhattanville. That made it an easy target for Columbia, which wanted to expand on a grand scale.
The land Columbia is eyeing for a tree-lined extension of its campus is a mostly industrial area of roughly five city blocks that is bordered by an elevated subway track, a highway viaduct, and two housing complexes. It is a gritty swath of warehouses, auto-repair shops, and car washes -- a testament to the area's having been zoned for manufacturing. Residences, which house mostly working-class people of color, are few. The university says 140 legal apartments, one-third of which are not occupied, are affected by its plans.
Zoned for Manufacturing
The site is home to two neighborhood institutions: La Floridita, a Cuban restaurant, and Fairway, a mega-grocery store on the Hudson River waterfront. People can often be seen casting their lines for fish just off the store's parking lot. Both neighborhood landmarks would remain after the expansion, Columbia officials say, although La Floridita would get a new location.
The first phase of the 30-year expansion, to be completed over a decade, would include building a new School of the Arts and a science building, which Columbia says it desperately needs to keep attracting top researchers, professors, and students.
"Our science building is four or five decades old," says Jeremiah Stoldt, director of campus planning. "Those types of restraints don't really lend themselves to cutting-edge research."
Columbia's plans for the first phase also call for setting aside 200,000 square feet of space in the ground floors of some buildings for retail that would serve the campus and the community. The university says it is too soon to know what construction will come next.
Columbia has been buying land in Manhattanville over the last year or so. Officials say the university now owns or leases about half the land it wants to develop. It is negotiating to buy the remaining property. For property that it can't buy -- and some owners are indeed holding their ground -- Columbia would have to turn to the state to help it get the land through eminent domain. It is an option the institution has not publicly ruled out.
"I think we want to go in with the assumption that we can buy everything we need," Mr. Stoldt says.
For all of its attempts to do things right this time around, Columbia still faces entrenched opposition. Some people like Maritta Dunn, a member of Community Board 9 and a Manhattanville resident of 44 years, says Columbia hasn't learned much in the 36 years since the massive student protest.
Ms. Dunn says Columbia's refusal to say that it will not use eminent domain to oust property owners from their land kills the spirit of partnership that the university says it wants with Harlem. And she is not impressed with Columbia's outreach efforts, dubbing them a "public relations" ploy at best.
Mr. Reyes-Montblanc, the Community Board 9 chairman, says that sentiment is somewhat widespread.
"My problem with Columbia is they use the same format over and over again," says Ms. Dunn, who also leads the Harlem Valley Heights Community Development Corporation. "They definitely need to expand, but this doesn't require them sucking up a whole neighborhood. The plan as it stands is ambitious -- to be nice. And invasive -- to be real."
Columbia officials have "been making a tremendous effort to communicate what they want," Mr. Reyes-Montblanc says. "But there is a sense in the community that the communication is one way."
Local activists have become increasingly vocal in their opposition.
"We're just simply trying to do our best to build a coalition that will make it clear to Columbia that we don't want their expansion in our neighborhood," says Tom DeMott, a founder of the Coalition to Preserve Community. The coalition exists, Mr. DeMott says, "to attempt to defend the neighborhood from what we see as a tremendous onslaught on the community to push out longtime residents and businesses."
Mr. Bollinger says he knows there will be "people who will continue to oppose" the institution's expansion plans no matter what.
The community's frustration spilled over at an April meeting, attended by more than 150 people, in which the university officially unveiled its expansion plans. As if making an academic presentation, Columbia officials turned to a sprawling three-dimensional model of the project, stacks of paperwork, and a polished PowerPoint presentation to pull everything together. Mr. Bollinger stood before the crowd to speak.
When he finished, members of the audience peppered him with pointed questions, revealing their skepticism about the project and the university's intentions. "I felt they were denouncing me and denouncing Columbia," Mr. Bollinger says of the meeting, which was held by Community Board 9.
'Palatable' Opposition
The neighborhood, however, is by no means monolithic in its opposition. Barbara Hohol, a local activist and self-described "wide-eyed moderate" says she believes that Columbia has good intentions to be a part of the community.
The expansion, Ms. Hohol says, should be "more palatable" because it is not imminent -- thanks to the 30-year timetable that the university has for the project. "But I do think their feet should be held to the fire," says Ms. Hohol.
More palatable still, Columbia has promised that the expansion would create 9,000 new jobs and pour $4-billion into New York's economy. Columbia also says it will provide minority construction contracts and the relocation of businesses and residents.
But in Manhattanville, Columbia's word is not enough.
The community advisory committee, in a report it produced in June, recommended that such promises be put in writing. Other neighbors are pushing to get the university to sign a community-benefits agreement as well. Such a document, which Columbia isn't obligated to sign, would outline more specifically how Harlem would be improved because of the project.
The advisory committee's report recommended that Columbia provide job training for the new positions it plans to provide, play a role in the development of affordable housing, preserve more of the area's historic landmarks, and improve the quality of education in the schools surrounding its campus, among other things.
"I do think they have to make some assurances that the jobs created will be to the extent possible filled by people in the neighborhood ... and not just simply Ph.D.'s from other parts of the country," Mr. McCaughey says.
Columbia appears to be reluctant to sign such a contract, saying that doing so would bind the hands of future administrations.
"I think they are perplexed and divided over the issue of a community-benefits agreement," says Joseph Wilson, a Columbia alumnus and director of the Graduate Center for Worker Education at Brooklyn College who helped write the committee's report. "There are some who would like to see a pledge and others who are more cautious to committing the university to anything in writing."
Mr. Reyes-Montblanc, chairman of one of the handful of governmental entities that will have a say in Columbia's rezoning request, says a community-benefits agreement is key.
"The rezoning they will receive is dependent on that," Mr. Reyes-Montblanc says. "Most people in the community are not against developing the area. The question is whether what Columbia is proposing is the best solution."
http://chronicle.com/
Section: Money & ManagementVolume 51, Issue 6, Page A29
Thursday, September 30, 2004
September-October 2004
MTA to sell $1B in land, including 5M sf on West Side
By Jennifer Benepe
http://www.therealdeal.net/issues/September-October_2004/1095818572.php
The announcement by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority this past month that it will sell a large amount of land to finance future capital construction has the real estate community guessing about what property will be sold and for how much.
The problem is that the MTA doesn't know either."We're doing an inventory of everything there, what the value is, and what we would get if we sold it," said Tom Kelly, a spokesperson for Peter Kalikow, MTA chairman.
Published reports have put the amount of land to be sold at $1 billion, but Kelly said the agency was still looking carefully at what unused land, right-of-ways, and land adjacent to MTA bridges and tunnels that have no real purpose could be sold.
The biggest pieces for sale will involve the rail yards along Manhattan's West Side and land in Downtown Brooklyn for a Nets stadium, but most of the parcels will likely be small ones."Some of that property people may have taken as their back yards," said Kelly. "Are we talking about 50 extra feet on both sides of an MTA property? We don't know."The extent of the task is daunting. According to an MTA document, the agency "possesses billions of dollars of real estate physical assets, including over 14,000 properties, nearly one thousand stations, and over 1,000 right-of-ways, and numerous bridges and tunnels."
As detailed in their 2003 financial report, the MTA owns $124 million of land, and $10 billion in buildings and structures, both making up well over a third of the agency's total fixed assets.
According to a senior member of the real estate group, the MTA advertises available property in the local newspapers, such as the New York Post and New York Newsday, but there is no schedule or notification system for large-scale property disposals.
The MTA's hottest properties are a pair of rail yards on Manhattan's far West Side which are potential sites for a multibillion dollar sports arena and mixed use development.
While developers don't want the tracks themselves, the air rights are expected to have hefty price tags. While the proposed Jets stadium is to be built over the western rail yards, the eastern rail yards land would be sold and used to house over 10.7 million square feet of mixed commercial, residential and cultural buildings, and a park land about the size of Bryant Park.
Once decking over the yards is completed, the eastern rail yards are estimated to yield 5.7 million square feet of development space. Currently the land is valued at $812 million, a price tag of $159 per square foot.
But this valuation has been questioned by city and state officials, who say it does not represent the number that developers will pay once the amelioration of the surrounding area has been completed. The price is more than likely to double or more after the city has completed the decking, built street improvements, added the No. 7 subway line extension and completed new commercial zoning.
Despite government wrangling, developers' interest in the properties is strong. Once the plan moves forward, the city's Economic Development Corporation will offer three major mixed office and residential development parcels for bid. These will be built close to the proposed park and cultural building, which would raise the value of the land.
"I would love to be involved down there, though it is too preliminary to know whether we can get the density we want," said Peter Murray, vice president of Loewen Development, a private firm that has developed 15 properties in the city over 12 years. Zoning densities are projected with a FAR, or floor area ratio, of six and over.
A bill introduced in the New York Assembly by Speaker Sheldon Silver in July attempted to subject the MTA sale to the land-use review process that other city properties must undergo before a sale is completed. The bill would have allowed the city council, community boards and the public to weigh in on the sale of the land, but the bill has languished in the Senate and is unlikely to pass, according to city and state officials.
MTA to sell $1B in land, including 5M sf on West Side
By Jennifer Benepe
http://www.therealdeal.net/issues/September-October_2004/1095818572.php
The announcement by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority this past month that it will sell a large amount of land to finance future capital construction has the real estate community guessing about what property will be sold and for how much.
The problem is that the MTA doesn't know either."We're doing an inventory of everything there, what the value is, and what we would get if we sold it," said Tom Kelly, a spokesperson for Peter Kalikow, MTA chairman.
Published reports have put the amount of land to be sold at $1 billion, but Kelly said the agency was still looking carefully at what unused land, right-of-ways, and land adjacent to MTA bridges and tunnels that have no real purpose could be sold.
The biggest pieces for sale will involve the rail yards along Manhattan's West Side and land in Downtown Brooklyn for a Nets stadium, but most of the parcels will likely be small ones."Some of that property people may have taken as their back yards," said Kelly. "Are we talking about 50 extra feet on both sides of an MTA property? We don't know."The extent of the task is daunting. According to an MTA document, the agency "possesses billions of dollars of real estate physical assets, including over 14,000 properties, nearly one thousand stations, and over 1,000 right-of-ways, and numerous bridges and tunnels."
As detailed in their 2003 financial report, the MTA owns $124 million of land, and $10 billion in buildings and structures, both making up well over a third of the agency's total fixed assets.
According to a senior member of the real estate group, the MTA advertises available property in the local newspapers, such as the New York Post and New York Newsday, but there is no schedule or notification system for large-scale property disposals.
The MTA's hottest properties are a pair of rail yards on Manhattan's far West Side which are potential sites for a multibillion dollar sports arena and mixed use development.
While developers don't want the tracks themselves, the air rights are expected to have hefty price tags. While the proposed Jets stadium is to be built over the western rail yards, the eastern rail yards land would be sold and used to house over 10.7 million square feet of mixed commercial, residential and cultural buildings, and a park land about the size of Bryant Park.
Once decking over the yards is completed, the eastern rail yards are estimated to yield 5.7 million square feet of development space. Currently the land is valued at $812 million, a price tag of $159 per square foot.
But this valuation has been questioned by city and state officials, who say it does not represent the number that developers will pay once the amelioration of the surrounding area has been completed. The price is more than likely to double or more after the city has completed the decking, built street improvements, added the No. 7 subway line extension and completed new commercial zoning.
Despite government wrangling, developers' interest in the properties is strong. Once the plan moves forward, the city's Economic Development Corporation will offer three major mixed office and residential development parcels for bid. These will be built close to the proposed park and cultural building, which would raise the value of the land.
"I would love to be involved down there, though it is too preliminary to know whether we can get the density we want," said Peter Murray, vice president of Loewen Development, a private firm that has developed 15 properties in the city over 12 years. Zoning densities are projected with a FAR, or floor area ratio, of six and over.
A bill introduced in the New York Assembly by Speaker Sheldon Silver in July attempted to subject the MTA sale to the land-use review process that other city properties must undergo before a sale is completed. The bill would have allowed the city council, community boards and the public to weigh in on the sale of the land, but the bill has languished in the Senate and is unlikely to pass, according to city and state officials.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
CB9M Resolution In Opposition to Eminent Domain
Community Board N. 9 - Manhattan CB9M
September 24, 2004
Hon. Michael Bloomberg
Mayor
City Hall
New York, New York 10007
Dear Mayor Bloomberg:
At it's regularly scheduled monthly meeting held on Thursday, September 23, 2004 the following resolution re: Opposition to Eminent Domain was passed by a vote of 29 in favor, 0 opposed, and 0 abstentions:
Whereas, Community Board No. 9 Manhattan is undergoing an on going regeneration process through the preparation of its 197-A Plan; and
Whereas, This process has called for a review of past policies; and
Whereas, The Board has never condoned the use eminent domain for private gain; and
Whereas, Several States have officially repudiated and legally curtailed improper use of the Eminent Domain statute; and
Whereas, Review by our consultants from Pratt Institute has confirmed that conditions in our Manhattanville are not "Blighted"; and
Whereas, Property owned by individual tax paying businesses are in excellent condition; and
Whereas, Properties displaying the most need for remediation belongs to the City or to a non-profit holder; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That Community Board No. 9 Manhattan declares its opposition to the use of condemnation through a "Blight" studies or any other method, as a vehicle toward eminent domain; and be it further
Resolved, That Community Board No. 9 formally requests that no government agency present an offer of eminent domain, whether for or not-for profit, to any private persons seeking development in the Board 9 Manhattan District.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact either me or District Manager, Lawrence T. McClean at (212) 864-6200.
Sincerely,
Jordi Reyes-Montblanc
Chair
cc:
Hon. Charles B. Rangel, U.S. Congressman
Hon. Eric Schneiderman, State Senator
Hon. David A. Paterson, State Senator
Hon. Daniel O'Donnell, Assemblymember
Hon. Keith Wright, Assemblymember
Hon. Herman D. Farrell, Jr., Assemblymember
Hon. C. Virginia Fields, Manhattan Borough President
Hon. Robert Jackson, City Councilmember
Hon. Bill Perkins, City Councilmember
Community Board Offices [City-Wide]
NYC Council
September 24, 2004
Hon. Michael Bloomberg
Mayor
City Hall
New York, New York 10007
Dear Mayor Bloomberg:
At it's regularly scheduled monthly meeting held on Thursday, September 23, 2004 the following resolution re: Opposition to Eminent Domain was passed by a vote of 29 in favor, 0 opposed, and 0 abstentions:
Whereas, Community Board No. 9 Manhattan is undergoing an on going regeneration process through the preparation of its 197-A Plan; and
Whereas, This process has called for a review of past policies; and
Whereas, The Board has never condoned the use eminent domain for private gain; and
Whereas, Several States have officially repudiated and legally curtailed improper use of the Eminent Domain statute; and
Whereas, Review by our consultants from Pratt Institute has confirmed that conditions in our Manhattanville are not "Blighted"; and
Whereas, Property owned by individual tax paying businesses are in excellent condition; and
Whereas, Properties displaying the most need for remediation belongs to the City or to a non-profit holder; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That Community Board No. 9 Manhattan declares its opposition to the use of condemnation through a "Blight" studies or any other method, as a vehicle toward eminent domain; and be it further
Resolved, That Community Board No. 9 formally requests that no government agency present an offer of eminent domain, whether for or not-for profit, to any private persons seeking development in the Board 9 Manhattan District.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact either me or District Manager, Lawrence T. McClean at (212) 864-6200.
Sincerely,
Jordi Reyes-Montblanc
Chair
cc:
Hon. Charles B. Rangel, U.S. Congressman
Hon. Eric Schneiderman, State Senator
Hon. David A. Paterson, State Senator
Hon. Daniel O'Donnell, Assemblymember
Hon. Keith Wright, Assemblymember
Hon. Herman D. Farrell, Jr., Assemblymember
Hon. C. Virginia Fields, Manhattan Borough President
Hon. Robert Jackson, City Councilmember
Hon. Bill Perkins, City Councilmember
Community Board Offices [City-Wide]
NYC Council
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