Auto Shops Expect Displacement Manhattanville Tenants Fight For Fair Rent Negotiations, Await Relocation Details

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Auto Shops Expect Displacement
Manhattanville Tenants Fight For Fair Rent Negotiations,
Await Relocation Details
By Anna Phillips
Issue date: 12/11/06 Section: News


Media Credit: Daniella Zalcman
Manhattanville auto shop owners are cautiously
approaching Columbia's offers of relocation.
Both sides in the dispute now have lawyers to handle
the issue.

For several of the owners of auto repair shops at 3251 Broadway, negotiations with Columbia about relocation and payment of rent have begun in earnest.

As of last spring, Columbia, which bought the building in February for about $4.9 million, had notified the tenants-five auto repair shops-that due to safety concerns over the building's freight elevator, the University wanted to relocate them.

Although no specific locations were designated at the time, the University said that the relocation sites would be within Columbia's proposed expansion zone in West Harlem, meaning that the businesses would likely undergo a second move if Columbia were able to build its Manhattanville campus. This incited protest from the tenants and community groups opposed to the expansion.

In February, the repair shop on the building's third floor closed. The tenants' attorney, Philip van Buren, said the owners left after Columbia gave notice that it was going to shut down the elevator.

The other four businesses remain, but their leases have expired and they have yet to sign new ones. In the interim, they are operating on a month-to-month holdover, meaning that the terms of the expired leases are extended each month provided that the tenants pay rent and Columbia does not evict them.

According to van Buren, for about 6,000 square feet of space, each tenant is paying roughly $2,400 a month-below market rate, according to University Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin. Currently, two of the four tenants are withholding rent to "defray their costs of moving if they have to move out," though van Buren would not specify which ones.

And they likely will have to move. Although the University has repeatedly postponed the date by which the tenants have to relocate, Carol Shuchman, Columbia's director of institutional real estate, and van Buren have been exchanging letters and holding meetings for months to negotiate leases. Shuchman declined to comment for this article.

According to van Buren, negotiations up until this point have been unacceptable to the tenants. In early fall, the University offered a one-year lease with a provision stating that if Columbia desired, it could terminate that lease with 60 days' notice. It also offered to pay $8,384.64-three months of rent-to the three businesses that have been offered new locations provided that they cover moving expenses.

"It was financial suicide," van Buren said. "These are completely raw spaces, there's no lighting."

Jose Luis Jimenez, the owner of Los Compadres Auto Repair on the building's second floor, agreed. "The space is good but the lease is bad, that's why we haven't signed," he said, adding that he would be satisfied with a three- to five-year offer.

"You're going to have one year and then, pfft... you're out," said Roland Sally, the main mechanic at 3251 Broadway Auto Center on the first floor.

Columbia has since hired David Zinberg, an attorney from the firm Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll and Bertolotti, LLP, to handle its negotiations with the tenants.

Zinberg's most recent lease offer has been to the owners of Los Compadres. It is a one-year lease for a new location at 630 W. 131st St. Within this year, Los Compadres can terminate its lease with 60 days' notice if business is not going well and not pay the full year's rent. The new lease also includes an offer of $25,000 should the business have to relocate for a second time.

The new offer "begins to address the issue of the very unpredictable future that these guys are otherwise looking at," van Buren said. Still, he has his complaints.

According to a recent letter from Zinberg regarding Los Compadres, the New York City Commissioner of Buildings requested on Jan. 26 that Columbia erect a "sidewalk shed" to correct building violations. Jimenez and Sally believe that this scaffolding is obstructing potential customers' view of the businesses' signs and is responsible for how poor business has been this year. In the letter, Zinberg wrote, "the University is not responsible for the claimed loss of business" and offered to have the tenants pay their arrears in 12-month installments over the lease term, but van Buren is hoping to negotiate for a 50 percent reduction in rent arrears.

How further negotiations will result is uncertain, but Columbia is getting antsy. In his letter regarding Los Compadres, Zinberg wrote that the University "will not be willing to hold these premises available indefinitely." While the first move appears inevitable, the possibility of a second relocation is complicated by whether the auto repair shops are compatible with Columbia's vision of the proposed campus.

"If there are tenants in good standing who can continue to exist in Columbia facilities, our preference will be to relocate them within the project area," Kasdin said in a September meeting with Spectator. He added that the first and second floors of buildings along Broadway, 12th Avenue, and 125th Street would have retail outlets.

"There are some businesses that are fundamentally incompatible and those we would try to relocate outside the project area," he said adding that "there are problems with that building which preexist our ownership. We want those businesses that can continue to thrive to continue to thrive, and we're not raising their rents as we find better space."

Bollinger's Balancing Act President Approaches Public Criticism As A Scholar And Executive

Columbia Spectator
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Bollinger's Balancing Act
President Approaches Public Criticism As A Scholar And Executive
By Josh Hirschland and Kate Linthicum
Issue date: 12/8/06 Section: News

Two days after a speech by Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist erupted into a chaotic brawl, University President Lee Bollinger issued his first public statement to the Columbia student body. Three hours later, two Columbia students squared off in an intense debate on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor. It was the zenith of a swelling media firestorm that prompted Mayor Michael Bloomberg to publicly call on Bollinger to "get his hands around" the situation and Bill O'Reilly to accuse Bollinger of "hiding under his desk as he always does."

Bollinger, as both the executive of one of the largest institutions in New York and as an academic scholar, embodies two different, and sometimes conflicting, personas.

"He's in such a unique position because he kind of has to balance and respond to things in a more thought-out way than maybe somebody else would because of his constituency," said Chris Riano, GS and a member of the University Senate's Executive Board. "He has to take into account a lot of sides and points of view."

This is especially true in times of crisis. When controversy swirled in 2005 over allegations of intimidation in the Middle East and Asian languages and cultures department, Bollinger said that it took him one month longer than he would have liked to make a statement on academic freedom.

"I found his silence on the MEALAC thing sort of astounding," said Bari Weiss, CC '07, a former Spectator columnist and editor in chief of The Current, who was at the forefront of the MEALAC debate. "I saw him as a wussy and unwilling to ... stand up and take a position."

When asked recently about how he balances executive action with academic reserve, Bollinger said, "I'm tempted to respond to it like an academic." Indeed, when confronting crises Bollinger has tended toward his scholarly roots, staying on the sidelines to formulate a response while his press staff fields calls from the media.

But according to one crisis management consultant, it should be the leader of an institution that makes first contact with the media during a time of crisis. "That doesn't mean you have to have a prepared point of view," said Lonnie Soury of Soury Communications, a crisis management consultant group in New York. "All you are doing is putting out that consideration that you're there and aware of the issues, and that can be done immediately and should be."

Soury said this is necessary to stop an issue from spinning out of control in the media. "Unless they [leaders] act quickly, it leaves it to others to frame the issues and there's a tremendous possibility for misinformation to get out," he said. "I think there really needs to be a balance in leadership positions of understanding complex issues and acting quickly."

Some have said that Bollinger is at his best when he's considering long-term issues with deep complexity, as it keeps him out of the spotlight of controversy that former Harvard President Larry Summers garnered after making several off-the-cuff remarks in public about women in the sciences.

Outside of Columbia's gates, people on both sides of the debate over the proposed Manhattanville expansion have heralded Bollinger's cautious treatment of the subject."

This is a very complicated matter, and he has dealt with it as well as anyone else could have dealt with it," said Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, chair of Community Board 9. "He's a scholar, not a warrior."

Others have suggested that Bollinger's reserved demeanor is actually a strategy in times of crisis. According to Avi Zenilman, CC '07 and editor in chief of The Blue and White, Bollinger will "call everybody on the inside to see that everybody is okay and rely on support for his personal skills, support for his distant demeanor to get him through." This policy, according to Zenilman, is characterized by doing "the minimum that is necessary."

Chris Kulawik, CC '08, a Spectator columnist, and president of the Columbia University College Republicans, said he thought Bollinger adopted that strategy during the aftermath of the Minuteman brawl. "I can understand why President Bollinger wanted to disassociate himself from the controversy. ... That makes sense from a business sense," he said. "But you also have a man who is a free speech scholar ... who, when problems arise, ... throws administrators at you."

When there is less at stake, people say Bollinger is more candid. Weiss, who is a student in Bollinger's class Freedom of Speech and Press, has praised his sense of humor. Riano said that in Executive Committee meetings, "he is pretty quick." He continued, "He'll sit there, he'll digest a situation, and he will come up with something."

The repercussions of Bollinger's style remain to be seen. "I wonder if this crisis management strategy is going to come back to bite him," Zenilman said. "There is only so much that CU people can take of CU being in the news."

Bollinger said that his style in making decisions during crises is the right one. "My goal is to think through things well," he said. "I try to be as self-critical as I can in how I do things."And he said what matters in the end is the quality of the decision. "The more you think through issues, the more you can understand what's at stake and what should be the principles that you should work for ... [and] the better the decision will be."

STAFF EDITORIAL: Neighborhood Feeling

Columbia Spectator
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STAFF EDITORIAL: Neighborhood Feeling
Issue date: 12/8/06 Section: Opinion

La Rosita was everything that Havana Central will never be-an authentic, family-owned Cuban eatery with cheap prices and a 24-year-long history in Morningside Heights. The restaurant is expected to permanently close by the end of the month because of rising rent. The closing of La Rosita is indicative of greater changes that have been shaping the neighborhood for some time.

With the closings of Movie Place and Wood-O-Rama and the installation of American Apparel and McDonalds, Morningside Heights is beginning to take on the strip mall appearance that now characterizes much of Manhattan. While the large-scale economic factors behind this trend of commercialization are not directly the fault of the University, Columbia should do what it can to preserve the character of the immediate neighborhood.

Rising rents are a fact of New York life, and while Columbia is frequently blamed for the gentrification of West Harlem, independently owned businesses are struggling all through the city. Coliseum Books, one of the largest independent bookstores in New York, also will close before the year's end. There is little the University can do to keep rent down in building it does not own, but in those that it does own, Columbia should keep rents as low as financially possible and discourage chains from moving in. While there is nothing Columbia can do about the broad macroeconomic trends driving the city's rising cost of living, it does have a responsibility to preserve and nurture its immediate community.

In comparison to the neighborhoods surrounding New York University and Fordham University, Morningside Heights has remained relatively chain-free. But recent changes in the neighborhood indicate a trend in the wrong direction. The effects of gentrification are to some degree unavoidable, but they can be mitigated by supporting local businesses that are reflective of the community.

The Fourth Harlem: Commercial Development

Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:34:34 -0500
To: "jordi Reyes-Montblanc" , ">reysmont@hdfccentral.org>,
From: "Tenant"
Subject: The Fourth Harlem: Commercial Development

The New York Sun
December 7, 2006 Edition > Section: Real Estate > Printer-Friendly Version

The Fourth Harlem: Commercial Development
BY MICHAEL STOLER
December 7, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/44736

Call it the Fourth Harlem: the Harlem of commercial real estate. If you want to know how lively it is, ask Vornado Realty Trust, one of the largest owners, managers, and developers of commercial real estate ­ and, The New York Sun has learned, the entity heading a joint venture scheduled to build Class A office space north of 96th Street.Earlier this week, I wrote about the Three Harlems ­ east, west, and central ­ and what is happening in residential real estate.

The story of the Fourth Harlem is also full of action.Construction on the joint venture project headed by Vornado Realty Trust is scheduled to begin in April. It involves a mixed-use Class A office and retail center in East Harlem. The Vornado real estate portfolio in New York City comprises 18.3 million square feet of office space in 42 office buildings.

The new tower in East Harlem will be on a parking lot owned by the New York College of Podiatric Medicine at 1800 Park Ave. between 124th and 125th streets. The site is directly across the street from the 125th Street Metro-North rail station and one block from the Lexington Avenue subway station.According to title records, the joint venture of Vornado Realty Trust, Integrated Holdings, and MacFarlane Partners paid $20 million to the leaseholder that had entered into an agreement with the college in 2003. The joint venture will pay an undisclosed sum to acquire the land before closing. Industry leaders estimate that the price will be approximately $40 million; therefore, the total cost of the land is $60 million.

In January 2003, the college entered into a 48-year land lease with 1800 Park Avenue LLC, an entity controlled by Michael Caridi that had planned to develop Harlem Park, a mixed-use complex that would have featured 250,000 square feet of office space, a 204-room Marriott Courtyard Hotel, a spa, restaurants, a 35,000-square-foot event facility, 62,000 square feet of retail space, 100 residential units, and a parking garage.

Speaking at my class at the New York University Real Estate Institute this week, the president of Vornado Office, David Greenbaum, said: "We are planning to build a mixed-use, 600,000 square building, comprised of approximately 500,000 square of Class A office, 100,000 square of retail, and underground parking." He added that "rents in the tower will be approximately 40% less expensive than any new office tower in Midtown Manhattan."

"This tower will provide a benefit package which is very attractive to our company and tenants, which will aid in the reduction of our costs and of the rents paid by our tenants. The net rent for a new tenant after credits and abatement of taxes is in the range of $43 per square foot as compared to $80 to $100 for similar property in Midtown," Mr. Greenbaum said.These credits and exemption programs include an Industrial and Commercial Incentive Program abatement of property taxes for up to 25 years, which reduces the cost of operation by about $25 a square foot for the first 16 years; a Relocation and Employment Assistance Program, a savings of about $10 to $12 a square foot for tenants, and a Brownfield redevelopment tax credit available for the cleanup and redevelopment of a qualified Brownfield site.

"The building would the tallest building in Harlem, and can offer a tenant a branding opportunity," Mr. Greenbaum said. "We have been talking to a number of tenants who are interested in branding the location as their corporate headquarters." Over the years, a number of companies have considered relocation to Harlem, including Black Entertainment Television. A number of government agencies and nonprofits have also expressed interest in relocating its offices to the tower.Major retailers are interested in the retail component of the building, which may include a Nike store, a Starbucks, and a food component to serve both office tenants and the community.

"We made a great mistake that we did not go to Harlem five years ago for commercial and residential development," the managing partner of Apollo Real Estate Advisors, Richard Mack, said. "It is a natural extension of the Upper West and Upper East Side."

"Harlem is an excellent alternative to a company relocating to Jersey City or Long Island City, excellent transportation and infrastructure," the president and chief executive of Cushman & Wakefield, Bruce Mosler, said.Investors and lenders are bullish on the office market in Central Harlem. A year ago, the City Investment Fund and Cogswell Realty Group closed on the recapitalization of two office buildings in Central Harlem. The Cogswell Realty Group had purchased both buildings several years earlier and is completing a physical upgrading and retenanting.

The 14-story, 232,314-square-foot office building at 55 W. 125th St. between Fifth and Lenox avenues, built in 1974, has no vacancies. Tenants in the building include the office of President Clinton, the New York City Administration for Children's Services, Louise Wise, the New York City Housing Authority, and the Social Security Administration.

The office building at 215 W. 125th St., situated between Adam Clayton Powell and Frederick Douglass boulevards, built in 1970, has 170,841 square feet. The building has a 260-spot outdoor parking lot, and its tenants include the local community board and the Department of Labor. The land is owned by the Trustees of Columbia University.

About 128,900 square feet of additional space can be built on the site based upon zoning. Bear Stearns Commercial Mortgage provided securitized financing for these two buildings."Our office tenants are primarily governmental entities or organizations which are funded through federal, state or city programs," the president of the City Investment Fund, Thomas Lydon Jr., said.

"We purchased the properties because we see office rents in these buildings averaging around $30 per square foot, being very cheap relative to other alternatives in the city. The purchase price was at a significant discount to sales in Midtown, even before the recent big run-up in the past year. Additionally the retail space is very successful on 125th Street."New York City is under-retailed, especially in Harlem. It took more than 50 years for the first shopping center to open in Harlem.

At the intersection of 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in the heart of Central Harlem, the 285,000-squarefoot retail complex, Harlem USA, opened in April 2000. It was developed by Grid Properties and the Gotham Organization in conjunction with Commonwealth Local Development Corp., an affiliate of Harlem Commonwealth Council, a community-based not-for-profit economic development corporation.Another mixed-use complex is in the planning stages in East Harlem.

This development, to include retail, will be built on a six-acre site on 125th Street in East Harlem. In October, the New York City Economic Development Corporation issued a request for proposals for the sale and development of the site. The development is expected to be a dynamic retail, residential, entertainment, and media destination.

The site consists of three parcels between Second and Third avenues and 125th and 127th streets.The project is expected to include up to 300,000 square feet of national retail space, including 120,000 square feet of specialty retail, restaurants, cinemas, and nightclubs, as well as 50,000 square feet of local retail. Up to 1,000 units of mixed-income housing are recommended, along with about 300,000 square feet of media space and up to 30,000 square feet of space for not-for-profit performing, visual, and media arts. There is also the potential for a hotel.

The project site is at the eastern end of the 125th Street corridor in the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone and the East Harlem Empire Zone.

The city owns about 81% of the land that the project site comprises and is seeking to acquire the noncity-owned parcels. Proposals must include an underground replacement facility for the MTA bus storage depot that exists at grade on Parcel A. More than 12 prominent development organizations have expressed interest in the project, including the developers of Harlem USA, a joint venture of Blumenfeld Development and Forest City Ratner, the Related Companies, and Vornado Realty Trust.

The Bloomberg administration has been a great supporter of development all over Manhattan and plans to push for the renovation of La Marqueta, a city-owned property built under the auspices of Mayor La Guardia in 1935 as a public market under the Metro-North viaduct in East Harlem along the Park Avenue Corridor between 111th and 119th streets.

The East Harlem Business Capital Corporation was designated by the administration as developer of La Marqueta Internatiocional, a project to restore fully the historic La Marqueta.

The redevelopment of La Marqueta will include construction of six structures totaling 86,000 square feet over the eight block area. Tenants will range from smaller wholesale and retail fresh foods and food-related businesses to small cafes, anchor restaurants, and a variety of small kiosks.

The project will create more than 500 jobs.Residents of Harlem will have the opportunity to shop at Home Depot, Target, and Best Buy in 2008, when the joint venture of Blumenfeld Development Group and its joint venture partner, Forest City Ratner, complete East River Plaza, a new shopping center located on the site of the Washburn Wire factory. The site consists of 6 acres adjacent to the FDR Drive and the river between 116th and 119th streets.

East River Plaza is a multi-level, 500,000-square-foot retail project with an attached 1,248-space parking facility spanning three city blocks.Other developments planned for Harlem include a possible Macy's department store to anchor a retail development at Lennox Avenue and 125th Street. An 80-room hotel may be in the development stage at the site of an Associated supermarket and Lucy's bar at 124th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.

Commercial and retail developments are taking place all over the city, and, finally, they are reaching the Upper East and West Side in Harlem.

Mr. Stoler, a contributing editor to The New York Sun, is a television broadcaster and senior principal at a real estate investment fund. He can be reached at mtoler@newyorkrealestatetv.com.

December 7, 2006 Edition > Section: Real Estate > Printer-Friendly Version

Columbia Faces Two-Front Opposition to Expansion Plans

Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 09:57:31 -0500
To: "jordi Reyes-Montblanc" ,
From: "Tenant"
Subject: Columbia Faces Two-Front Opposition to Expansion Plans


The New York Sun
December 7, 2006 Edition > Section: New York > Printer-Friendly Version

Columbia Faces Two-Front Opposition to Expansion Plans
BY Staff Reporter of the Sun
December 7, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/44730

Parents fighting a plan to put a Columbia University-affiliated secondary school in the same building as a Harlem elementary school have joined forces with residents battling a university plan to expand its campus farther north.

At a Community Board 9 meeting last night, parents from P.S. 36 were supported by a contingent of community activists fighting Columbia University's proposed expansion into Manhattanville as they fired angry questions at Department of Education officials about the plans to temporarily house the new school inside the elementary school.

The department, which will finance and oversee the Columbia Secondary School of Math, Science, and Engineering due to open next year, announced last month it is considering the elementary school, which is next door to the university, as a temporary location. Department officials have emphasized that the decision is not final, but parents were skeptical.
"Stop trying to snowball us and give us a clearly defined answer," one P.S. 36 parent said before storming out of the raucous meeting.

Part of the reason for calling the meeting was to push the department to include parent input and allow the board to learn more about the plan, the chairman of Community Board 9, George Reyes-Montblanc, who has been a leader in opposing the university's Manhattanville expansion, said. "The fact that the DOE didn't consult us really bothers me," he said. "We're not here to crucify anyone, we're just here to find out what's going on.

"Parents have said it would be inappropriate to put a secondary school inside P.S. 36, which serves 3- to 8- year-olds. The school is too small, they say, with toilets outfitted for smaller-size people and a low-ceilinged cafeteria that triples as a gym and an auditorium.

The principal of the new school, José Maldonado, addressed P.S. 36 parents for the first time, apologizing for not involving the community in earlier planning stages for the secondary school and assuring them that the school would be representative of the community.

Eventually, the school will be housed on land provided by Columbia University. Its expected location at 125th Street and Broadway is currently home of a McDonald's and the corner of a 17-acre area of Manhattanville the university is eyeing for an additional campus.

The zoning change needed to build the school there must first be approved by Community Board 9.

December 7, 2006 Edition > Section: New York > Printer-Friendly Version
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Parents, DOE Clash At Hearing on P.S. 36 - Secondary School Plan Debated at CB9M

Columbia Spectator
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Parents, DOE Clash At Hearing on P.S. 36
Secondary School Plan Debated at CB9M
By Erin Durkin
Issue date: 12/7/06 Section: News

Parents clashed with representatives of the Department of Education at a hearing Wednesday night over the department's plan to locate the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering at P.S. 36.

The secondary school, a public magnet which will be run collaboratively by DOE and Columbia, is slated to open next fall. It will eventually be housed in its own building on the University's proposed Manhattanville campus. Until that building is ready, DOE has proposed putting the school at P.S. 36, an early childhood school on Morningside Drive. Parents have strenuously objected to the plan, saying that mixing middle school students with P.S. 36's young population is unsafe and will overcrowd the school.

Wednesday's hearing, held by Community Board 9, began on a contentious note as parent Cedric Flemming rose to demand concrete information. "Don't snowball us," he said, "Let us know what the deal is so we know what to do with our children. ... If there's nothing we can do to stop it, I'll go home."

As Jemina Bernard of the DOE's new schools office said that DOE was still evaluating the feasibility of the plan, Flemming said, "Same bullshit," and left the meeting.

"I've seen plenty of information and documentation to prove that putting the school there will hurt the school," said parent Christina Heath. "Everybody is saying we don't want it. Why would you still go ahead with it?"

Bernard said that DOE felt it was important to open the school before its permanent building was ready, and that P.S. 36 was the only feasible location they had found. "The demand for this kind of high quality, high caliber [school] starting in the sixth grade was so high that we thought it in the best interest of this community to open the school sooner rather than later."

But attendees continued to criticize what they perceived as the department's indifference to their feelings on the issue. "If a parent says to you that they don't want their children with older children in a school that was designed to be on a community model, and that it will destroy the work that has already been done, that has to be factored into the equation somehow," said CB9 member Dr. Vicky Gholson, "Parents want to expand the existing school. ... Why is the Department of Education not expanding the existing school?"

"I probably made mistakes in not reaching out to the community as soon as I should have," said the secondary school's principal Jose Maldonado. "I see the combination of the sixth and seventh graders with the little kids as having possibly very positive effects," he said, adding that he hoped to send his own 2 year old to P.S. 36.

Columbia declined to attend the meeting. Provost Alan Brinkley wrote in an e-mail to CB9 chair Jordi Reyes-Montblanc that "we feel it inappropriate for us to participate in a discussion of this decision, to which we were not a party and over which we have no authority."

University President Lee Bollinger said in an interview earlier this week that despite the dispute over the site, he was still pleased about Columbia's involvement in the project. "There are bound to be controversies," he said. "I take the view that if you have a fundamentally good idea, over time you will work through all these things and you will end up with a better world. So I don't regret for a second agreeing to work with the city on this."

CB9 Hopefuls Speak to Board - Most Races Uncontested; BC Student Vies for Secretary

Columbia Spectator
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CB9M Hopefuls Speak to Board
Most Races Uncontested; BC Student Vies for Secretary
By Jacob Schneider
Issue date: 12/5/06 Section: News

Discussion at Monday's Community Board 9 meeting centered on teamwork and community outreach as members got a chance to question nominees hoping to fill leadership positions on the board. CB9 will elect new officers at the next board meeting on Dec. 21.

All current officers were re-nominated, though three face challenges. Incumbent Jordi Reyes-Montblanc is running unopposed for chair of the board. If he maintains his position, it will the be last term in which he can hold it, according to the limits in CB9's bylaws. Additionally, current assistant treasurer Yvonne Stennett, assistant secretary Ramona Jennett, and first vice chair Carolyn Thompson are not facing challengers in their re-election bids.

By contrast, the races for treasurer, secretary, and second vice chair are more contentious, with debates focusing more on the accessibility of board documents and communication within the board than on outside political issues such as Columbia's Manhattanville expansion.

Treasurer candidate Michael Palma, who is challenging incumbent Barbara Marshall, promised the board that he'll make information about the board's financial status more readily available.

"Almost immediately, you'll see financial reports written in English and with narrative explanations," said Palma.

"I don't understand why we had to do a lot of massaging and manhandling and acrobatics just to understand where we stand financially." Martha Norrick, BC '07 and Spectator associate editorial page editor, who is running against incumbent secretary Ted Kovaleff, said that she intends to add more detailed information into the minutes of future meetings and translate them into Spanish.

"This is not a board without opinions and I think they should be reflected in the minutes," said Norrick.

Kovaleff stressed that he regularly e-mails minutes to board members to solicit suggestions and additions and that he's committed to creating a complete record.

"There are a lot of people out there who want to denigrate the community board and I've thought it was important to keep unimpeachable notes," he said.Three candidates are vying for the position of second vice-chair. Technology professional Theo Chino said that he will create a new Web site for CB9. Vicky Gholson said that she was concerned that the current leadership does not receive enough support.

"It's imperative that at each step we refresh our memory of the skills of individuals we have," Gholson said. "Within our skill base, we have the people to do whatever we want."

Incumbent Pat Jones also said that she would like to better use the skills on the board, adding that she seeks out opportunities to advise Reyes-Montblanc.

Court Ruling Protects Buildings’ Boards

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The New York Times
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/realestate/03home.html
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Court Ruling Protects Buildings’ Boards
By JAY ROMANO
Published: December 3, 2006

AN appellate court ruling issued last month gives New York co-op and condominium board members the ability to do their jobs without fear of being held personally liable for decisions made in good faith on behalf of their buildings.

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Illustration by Tom Bloom

“This decision has far-reaching implications for thousands of New Yorkers who own apartments in co-ops and condominiums,” said Lawrence D. Bernfeld, a Manhattan lawyer who represented the condominium and its board of managers in the case.

“The court has confirmed that people who volunteer to serve on boards do not have to live in fear of personal financial peril as long as they act in good faith and do not commit an independent wrong against their neighbors,” Mr. Bernfeld said.

In its Nov. 21 ruling in the case, Pelton v. 77 Park Avenue Condominium, the Appellate Division, First Department, dismissed a $23.5 million lawsuit brought by an apartment owner against the condominium association, its board, its management company and each of the nine board members.

Dean Pelton, who owns one of the 104 condos at 77 Park Avenue (at 38th Street), asked the board to make it easier for him to navigate steps in the building because he has muscular dystrophy. The board, acting on the advice of its architect and lawyers, provided a temporary solution by installing a portable motorized “stair climber.”

As a permanent solution, the board sought, and received, approval from unit owners for a $130,000 plan to install self-operating “mini-lifts,” one on each side of the lobby, that can be used to reach the passenger elevators. The plan also included a modification of the front entrance to eliminate the step there.

But Mr. Pelton contended that the board discriminated against him by failing to resolve the problem for more than two years and sought $23.5 million in damages in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

After the trial court judge rejected a motion to dismiss the case, the Appellate Division, First Department, which has jurisdiction over Manhattan and the Bronx, reversed that ruling and dismissed the complaint.

Justice Joseph P. Sullivan, writing for a unanimous court, said the business judgment rule, applied to co-op and condo boards by a 1990 Court of Appeals decision, prohibits courts from second-guessing the actions of corporate directors “taken in good faith and in the exercise of honest judgment in the lawful and legitimate furtherance of corporate purposes.”

Justice Sullivan said that nothing in Mr. Pelton’s allegations would provoke judicial scrutiny of the board’s action.

He noted further that in bringing an action against the nine board members individually, Mr. Pelton was required to “plead with specificity” the discriminatory acts each member had committed. He concluded that Mr. Pelton had “failed to show that any board member, much less each board member, has engaged in individual wrongdoing.”

Marc Luxemburg, a Manhattan lawyer who filed a “friend of the court” brief in the case on behalf of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums, said its outcome sent an unambiguous signal that volunteer board members should not be intimidated by threats of litigation.

“This case sends a strong message that you can’t sue board members individually just because they’re board members, even in discrimination cases,” Mr. Luxemburg said. “It puts a stop to the tactic of plaintiffs’ lawyers attempting to browbeat board members into submission or settlement by suing them personally.”

Jay Gurfein, the Manhattan lawyer who represented Mr. Pelton, said: “We view this as a victory for the plaintiff. We got the condominium to make the building handicap-accessible, and that is what we wanted.” He added that his client had not decided whether to appeal. -->
Grey Wolf-6

West side story - A $7bn planned expansion of Columbia University is causing outrage among WestSide Harlem residents

To: reysmont@yahoo.com, revkooperkamp@aol.com, whitmananne@yahoo.com
From: "Hans Kundnani"
Subject:
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 12:32:17 +0000

Thank you all for your help with my story on Manhattanville. Here's the online version from the Guardian's website:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1958083,00.html
I don't have an email address for Nellie - could one of you forward this email to her?

Thanks
Hans Kundnani



EducationGuardian.com.uk Education Weekly

West side story
A $7bn planned expansion of Columbia University is causing outrage among WestSide Harlem residents
Hans Kundnani
Tuesday November 28, 2006
The Guardian

Standing on Broadway as a subway train rattles by on rusty iron stilts above her, Louisa Henriquez points at her home which, if the developer's plan goes ahead, will be demolished. The apartment she has lived in for 30 years is in a tenement on 132nd Street, a block away from Broadway. In the distance you can see the massive Riverside Drive viaduct and behind that the Hudson river, and beyond that New Jersey. "They want everybody out of this area, all the way down to the river," she says.

The threat to her apartment block - and all the other buildings in a 17-acre area on the western edge of northern Manhattan - comes not from stereotypical property developers but from Columbia University, New York's elite Ivy League school. Columbia, whose main Beaux-Arts campus lies a few blocks to the south in leafy Morningside Heights, is planning a massive $7bn expansion into the area, known as Manhattanville. With the exception of an old Studebaker car plant, a listed building, it wants to knock down everything in the area.

The plan is the brainchild of Lee Bollinger, who became Columbia's president in 2002 and immediately devoted himself to solving the university's chronic space shortage. Manhattanville seemed to offer a unique opportunity. An industrial area of dilapidated warehouses, auto repair shops and a bus depot just a few blocks away from the main campus, it is by New York standards relatively empty, with only 132 residential units. By acquiring the whole area, Columbia, which has only 194 square feet per student compared with 368 at Harvard, could build much-needed science laboratories, relocate its business school and expand its arts faculty.

But by expanding into Manhattanville, which extends from 125th Street to 133rd Street, and from Broadway to 12th Avenue, Columbia was crossing a symbolic boundary. North of 125th Street is Harlem, where, to many people, Columbia's expansion is the most dramatic stage of a process of gentrification that has seen chain stores move in, rental prices increase and local people - mostly African-Americans - forced out. "West Harlem is bleeding while Columbia expands," says Nellie Hester Bailey, the executive director of the Harlem Tenants Council.

The relationship between Columbia and the historically black neighbourhood of Harlem has long been strained. It hit rock bottom in 1968 after Columbia planned to build a gymnasium in Morningside Park. In response to protests from locals (mainly black and Puerto Rican), Columbia agreed to allow them to use the facilities - through a separate entrance. The plan caused outrage and contributed to the violent clashes that erupted in April 1968.

This time it seemed as if Columbia could become a model for how a modern urban university could integrate with a diverse local community. In fact, Columbia says, its future success depends on being able to do exactly that. "It's our values and our self-interest to be good citizens," says Robert Kasdin, the university's senior executive vice-president. "I want to make sure that Columbia can look in the mirror and say, 'We did the right thing'."

Initially, many community leaders in Harlem say they were hopeful. Bollinger had great credentials: as executive vice- president of the University of Michigan, he had defended the university's right to use affirmative action in a landmark case in the US supreme court. But, as the project developed, some began to feel Columbia's offer of dialogue with the community was not genuine. "It's not turning out to be the collaboration it could be or should be," says the Reverend Earl Kooperkamp, the minister of St Mary's episcopal church, which lies on the edge of the area Columbia plans to develop.

In an old milk-bottling plant on 125th Street that serves as the showroom for the project, Warren Whitlock, the university's director of construction, shows me the drawings for the complex Columbia plans to build over the next 30 years. The glass-fronted 19-storey buildings resemble a shopping mall more than a university - indeed, the ground floor of most of the buildings will be given over to shops and restaurants, which Columbia says means locals will use the area. The complex will include a new centre for research in neuroscience. But beyond that, the plans remain vague. There has been talk of a hotel as part of the development, which Columbia at this stage cannot rule out.

The university has guaranteed that none of the 400 or so residents of the area, like Louisa Henriquez, will need to leave before the second phase of the development starts in 2015 and says they will be offered equivalent or better housing elsewhere. Opponents are sceptical and say that, in any case, the development will push up rental prices in the surrounding area (it is flanked on two sides by massive housing projects), forcing local people out. Some say it already has.

As part of the development, Columbia is building a new public high school (located where a McDonald's currently stands) specialising in mathematics, science and engineering. It says it will also create nearly 7,000 jobs, ranging from lab technicians to administrative assistants to cooks, and that a third of jobs at Columbia are filled by people from northern Manhattan. Again, opponents disagree. "We don't see the community is going to benefit as far as jobs," says Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, the chair of Community Board 9, a body that advises the city council, which will ultimately decide on whether the Manhattanville development goes ahead.

However, discussions between Columbia and the local community about these issues have now collapsed over what opponents see as the university's unwillingness to compromise. Local activists joined together to form the Coalition to Preserve Community (stopcolumbia.org), and put forward an alternative plan that allowed Columbia to build around existing housing and manufacturing in Manhattanville. But Columbia insists it needs to acquire every property in the five-by-two-block area and has reserved the right to use eminent domain (a form of compulsory purchase under US law), which some opponents say makes it impossible to negotiate. "That's not collaboration talk," says Kooperkamp. "That's bulldozer talk."

Opponents of the plans no longer believe anything Columbia tells them. "Left to their own devices, they'll take the whole island!" says Anne Whitman, the owner of Hudson Moving, a removals company located on Broadway at 125th Street.

Some see Columbia as no different from any other rapacious commercial property developer. "This is not a university expansion, it's a business park expansion combined with a land grab," says Tom DeMott, a member of the Coalition to Preserve Community.

Columbia insists that perception is wrong. "We're not condemning to make a profit, we're building to find cures for diseases like asthma," says Kasdin. He says Columbia is being unfairly blamed for bigger problems in Harlem that it is simply not in a position to solve. "People who feel marginalised do not differentiate between power," he says. Unless Columbia can help local people to do exactly that, however, its attempt to integrate with WestSide Harlem may be doomed to failure.

Put Me In, Beep!

Columbia Spectator
Home > News

Put Me In, Beep!
By Jimmy Vielkind
Issue date: 12/6/06 Section: News

Monday's candidates' night forum at Community Board 9 got me thinking-maybe I should apply for a seat on CB9.A quick spin around the Internet led me to an application on the Web site of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who, with some input from local city council members, appoints the 50 members that make up each of the dozen boards in Manhattan.

They serve as the most local form of government-liaisons for citizens with a city bureaucracy that is as layered as an onion and, at times, just as pungent. The residents, workers, and employees who make up the boards are charged with advising on decisions about long-term planning and land use, as well as the daily administrations of their districts, which deal with everything from street fairs to trash pickup.

Gripping, I know. But the best show in Harlem, I'm convinced, is not open mic at the Apollo. It's not a movie in the Magic Johnson Theater. It's not a set at the Showman or a pick-up game in the Rucker. It's a CB9 meeting. They even have free coffee (or, they have yet to yell at me for taking the coffee-my tax dollars at work).

The application started easily enough. Name. Age. Gender. Address. Attend school within the district (check). Employment information (tugs collar). Then it got more philosophical.

"What do you think are the three most pressing issues facing the Community Board you are applying for?"Well, there's that multi-billion-dollar expansion plan Columbia is pushing. It's a pretty big issue. The fact that the district is shedding units of affordable housing like an aging golden retriever is a big deal.

And there's the omnipresent creep of gentrification on this neighborhood.I checked "yes" for having attended a board meeting in the past 12 months, but I had to ponder the question, "What did you learn or what was your experience?"

Well, there was the time the police were called, and the room seemed on the verge of a brouhaha sparked by the proposed removal of an errant board member. I remember things becoming very heated and expecting the worst until former chair Maritta Dunn shouted the situation under control.

I remember the night that Columbia University President Lee Bollinger addressed the board in April 2004. It was standing room only, and attendees had the chance to react after their first glimpses of several renderings of the proposed Manhattanville campus.

And there was also the night that the new West Side Market building was approved, when I learned for the first time what a variance was, and what it meant to build something "as-of-right."

Unable to hone in on one experience, I instead focused on the lessons learned. For three years, CB9 meetings have been an audited class in local democracy-both its strengths and challenges-and the affairs of our local community. Starting at 6:30 p.m. on the last Thursday of each month.

The last question, "What do you hope to accomplish by serving on the Community Board?" was a meta zinger that reminded me of applying to college. I thought about it the most.

I want to build off of what I've learned as a Spectator of the board meetings and join the diverse group of people that sits up front in the low-ceilinged, linoleum-floored room on 125th Street that is home to the board offices and meetings. The members include a Cuban exile, an artist, a certified public accountant, tenant activists, business owners, and Harlem's first registered doctor of philosophy in communications design.

In her speech on Monday about why she should continue serving as second vice chair, Patricia Jones described working on the board as "boring, tedious, technical, but often times fun and always addressing business that must be done."

I couldn't agree more. If it weren't for this journalism thing, I'd sign up in a sec.

Miami Today is U.S. of Tomorrow

Miami Herald

Miami Today is U.S. of Tomorrow
December 5, 2006
Leonard Pitts Jr. -- Miami Herald columnist

There's a joke I tell behind Miami's back. I'll be elsewhere in the country and someone will ask how race and diversity are viewed from a South Florida perspective. I reply that, according to the Census Bureau, Miami's polyglot population represents what America will look like in about 40 years. And if America really understood that, it would be worried. Rim shot.

My point is that, for most of the years of the American experiment, our dialogue about race and diversity has been strictly bipolar: black and white, minority and majority. But by 2050, the conversation will be three way - black, white and brown - and none will have dominant numbers. We will ALL be minorities.

Given that America has never mastered the bipolar debate, the challenge of a three-way debate should give us pause. Especially when you factor in the racial and cultural stresses that periodically rattle and rend Miami.

Consider the young woman who told me once how her newlywed sister went to their mother with marital problems only to be told that such problems were what she deserved for being in a "mixed marriage." The upshot: both newlyweds were black, one born in the United States, the other in Haiti. Take it as proof that in South Florida, even black, white and brown is more complicated than you'd expect.

Similar complications are coming soon to the nation as a whole, as evidenced by the growing Hmong population in Minnesota and an influx of Africans in Maine. So the country ought to watch Miami with interest because it has a stake in the city getting it right.

Or, it could take the Tom Tancredo approach: write Miami off altogether. In a recent interview with a conservative Web site, Tancredo, an anti-illegal immigration hawk who has championed the building of a fence along the U.S. border with Mexico, said Miami "has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America."

For this, Tancredo has been publicly and properly rebuked by two prominent fellow Florida Republicans: Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Gov. Jeb Bush.

Me, I think the fact that Tancredo calls Miami not just another country, but a "Third World" country is rather telling. Apparently for him, Spanish accents and the smell of jerk chicken automatically equal poverty. It may surprise him to learn, but one seldom sees donkey carts on Miami streets and electricity is available almost 24 hours a day.

It is worth noting that Tancredo represents Colorado's 6th District, which is centered on the town of Littleton. Littleton, according to the last census, has a population of about 40,000. Just 1.2 percent of its people are black, 8.4 percent Hispanic - both significantly below the nation as a whole.

Not to dump on Littleton, but it represents precisely the sort of stark homogeneity that will become obsolete in the nation the Census Bureau predicts. So it's not hard to understand why Miami scares its congressman.

For the record, Miami scares Miami sometimes. Like when there are Cubans in a snit or American blacks up in arms or Haitians feeling put upon or whites feeling left out. You look around and ask yourself if, from this cacophony, it is possible to make harmony.

But really, what choice do we have but to try? What else have we ever done? Change is coming, but then, change is always coming. You cannot fence it off, cannot legislate it away. You can only face it and confront its challenges as best you can.

That's what we did when whites went West, when slaves became free, when Europeans streamed through Ellis Island. It's what's we are doing now. Miami is just the noise you get when a mix of peoples jockey for opportunity and shout to be heard.

Tancredo says that's not America. I say, when has America been anything else?

Source: (C) 2006 Charleston Gazette. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved

Columbia and Expansion: A Recipe for Disaster

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Columbia and Expansion: A Recipe for Disaster
By Jordi Reyes-Montblanc
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 4, 2006

Columbia University is a great institution: for 250 years, it has been among the premier institutions of higher education both in the United States and in the world. Columbia says it needs to expand, and most reasonable people agree-not just the University's spokesmen. And West Harlem is an ideal expansion target because Columbia already owns a substantial number of the properties there and it is within walking distance of the Morningside Heights main campus.

But West Harlem is also one of those unique areas of New York where many different people live together in a fairly harmonious way. Non-Latino whites, non-Latino blacks, Latinos, English-speakers and Spanish-speakers of many different origins, cultures, and ethnicities thrive in the most diverse community of two languages in the city of New York. This is where "Columbia University in the City of New York" coexists and wants to expand. After over a hundred years of being located in West Harlem, you would think the Columbia University Board of Trustees would have a good understanding of, sympathy for, and empathy with our communities.

Unfortunately that is not the case. The Board of Trustees is made up of highly successful, powerful, wealthy people who only have a vague recollection of their student days in Morningside or Washington Heights; they have no rapport or desire to really understand our communities. Their only concern is the expansion,

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/?q=node/23242

Food Vendors Decline to Submit Proposals for Morningside Cafe

Columbia Spectator
Home > News

Food Vendors Decline to Submit Proposals for Morningside Cafe
Parks Department Unsuccessfully Sought Bids for 112th St. Site
By Anna Phillips
Issue date: 12/4/06 Section: News

Several years after an outdoor cafe in Morningside Park closed because of financial struggles, the New York City Parks and Recreation Department again tried to resurrect the project. But, weeks after the deadline, the department has yet to receive any proposals, leaving the project's fate in question.The department issued a request for proposals in September for a cafe on the corner of Morningside Park at 112th Street and Morningside Avenue. According to the request, the proposed cafe's site would be atop the park house, an elevated plaza that overlooks the park's athletic fields and has restrooms on the lower level.The request stated that the concession license would have a 12-year limit and that the department "anticipates a substantial investment from the concessionaire" that would likely involve renovations to make the facility suitable for a restaurant business."It was just too much of an investment for them [potential concessionaires]," said Brad Taylor, the president of the Friends of Morningside Park. Taylor wondered whether the project's scope may have been too ambitious.Unwilling to give up entirely, the Friends of Morningside Park are looking for alternatives to what the request for proposals called a "high quality" cafe. Rather than waiting for proposals from restaurant owners, they're considering finding a food vendor to sell hot dogs and milk shakes during the summer months."It's such an interesting plaza there. There are many uses that could be put in there," Taylor said. "With the new Barnard dorm down there, I think it'd be a real interest to the Columbia community."Community Board 9 Chair Jordi Reyes-Montblanc said he had not received much of a response from community members regarding a cafe."I have not received any comments either in favor or against from the community, and that's something strange," he said.According to Carolyn Kent, the cochair of CB9's Parks and Landmarks Committee, members "were all very excited about the first arrival [the old restaurant] and sorry that it didn't work out. And it wasn't due to lack of quality, it was just a lack of customers," she said. "I don't know what could come in there that could be done reasonably. To me, it looks like kind of an iffy location." According to Taylor, Danny Meyer, a New York restauranteur who founded the Union Square Hospitality Group and opened the Union Square Cafe in 1985, looked at the Morningside Park location but found it did not have enough space for food preparation and storage."Just the fact that he [Meyer] was looking at it is a good sign for Morningside's profile," Taylor said. "I think it's still a little early."The Parks and Recreation Department did not return calls for comment.

Columbia and Expansion: A Recipe for Disaster

Columbia Spectator
Home > Opinion

Columbia and Expansion: A Recipe for Disaster
By Jordi Reyes-Montblanc
Issue date: 12/4/06 Section: Opinion

Columbia University is a great institution: for 250 years, it has been among the premier institutions of higher education both in the United States and in the world. Columbia says it needs to expand, and most reasonable people agree-not just the University's spokesmen. And West Harlem is an ideal expansion target because Columbia already owns a substantial number of the properties there and it is within walking distance of the Morningside Heights main campus.

But West Harlem is also one of those unique areas of New York where many different people live together in a fairly harmonious way. Non-Latino whites, non-Latino blacks, Latinos, English-speakers and Spanish-speakers of many different origins, cultures, and ethnicities thrive in the most diverse community of two languages in the city of New York. This is where "Columbia University in the City of New York" coexists and wants to expand. After over a hundred years of being located in West Harlem, you would think the Columbia University Board of Trustees would have a good understanding of, sympathy for, and empathy with our communities.

Unfortunately that is not the case. The Board of Trustees is made up of highly successful, powerful, wealthy people who only have a vague recollection of their student days in Morningside or Washington Heights; they have no rapport or desire to really understand our communities. Their only concern is the expansion -damn the torpedoes.

Well, torpedoes are exactly what the trustees are finding as they attempt to shove their views into the collective throats of the residents of Community Planning District 9 Manhattan represented by Community Board 9 Manhattan. For almost 20 years, our community worked, in many instances with Columbia's assistance, in developing our 197-a plan that gives form and substance to the desires of our diverse communities. Under CB9M's 197-a plan, Columbia can expand and the community is not displaced or inconvenienced. Moreover, the quality of life is enhanced for the whole of the CB9M territory, from West 110th Street to West 155th Street and from roughly St. Nicholas Avenue to the Hudson River.

The 17 acres targeted for the expansion is a fairly small area when compared to the CB9M district; however, within those 17 acres and within the additional 18 acres that Columbia's 197-c plan encompasses for rezoning are a number of apartment buildings and many small businesses that employ more than 1100 people. Most residents of the district are threatened with loss and displacement.

For many years Columbia has acquired properties in the area that have then been removed from use and stand either vacant or underutilized. In the last four years, Columbia has gone on a buying binge and acquired many additional properties. Following the University's acquisition of the properties, existing businesses close and move out. West Harlem is an industrial area, and therefore very utilitarian structures predominate, many with a beauty and history worth preserving that Columbia wants to raze in order to build the new campus.

The trustees have dictated that Columbia must obtain every inch of the 17 acres targeted, regardless of the means. Since many businesses have been resisting Columbia's offers, the administration has gone to the Empire State Economic Development Corporation and advanced the group $300,000 to produce a blight study, a precursor of condemnation procedures that may eventually lead to the state's use of eminent domain and the conveying of such properties to Columbia University. So families that have run their businesses in West Harlem for generations are now subject to a continuous pressure to sell that many classify as harassment. People have sold out to Columbia based on the threat of eminent domain and the knowledge that compensation under eminent domain is never commensurate with the real market value. When the mafia does something like that, it's called extortion-when Columbia real estate agents do it, we are supposed to accept it as business acumen.

Suddenly, just prior to when the Columbia paid-consultants started their EIS study, a rash of graffiti smearing took place on properties in the target area. Many people find this action too coincidental to be a coincidence. The EIS study is used by ESDC to create their general program-which includes provisions for the so-called blight study precursor to condemnation and eminent domain. The fact is that the only properties in distressed condition in West Harlem are Columbia University properties. A blight study will, if conducted professionally and without bias, reveal that there is no blight and that only Columbia properties are distressed and could qualify as blighted. The blight Columbia is seeking is really within its own properties, whether they were bought yesterday or 20 years ago. It has been Columbia's actions, or lack thereof, that have created the underutilization and closing of many area businesses. Any properties deserving condemnation are Columbia's. If the University is successful in using eminent domain, those Columbia properties should be conveyed to local developers that will actually be guided by CB9M's 197-a plan.

CB9M facilitated the establishment of a local development corporation, widely representative of the various community interests by electing directors that represent whole segments of the CB9M communities. The West Harlem LDC currently has 27 directors, two of whom are representatives of CB9M. Thus any community benefits agreement reached is totally independent of the CB9M public review and hopefully the political influences that Columbia can bring into play. The public review process (Uniform Land Use Review Process) will be independently conducted by CB9M regardless of whatever community benefits agreement the LDC and Columbia agree on. Any consideration for possible changes to CB9M's 197-a plan will go through the same open, public, and participatory manner as was done to create the 197-a plan to ensure that the desires and aspirations expressed by our communities' are respected. The expectations of Columbia really exceed the targeted 17 acres for its 30-year development plan. In fact, by rezoning 35 acres, Columbia ensures that it will not have to return to the community board or the communities in the future. That is, while the 17 acres are Columbia's 30-year plan, the 35 acres have been called by some Columbia's 50-year plan.

Columbia University has stated that it wants a "partnership with the community and the community would welcome a partnership of equals." West Harlem will not be a minority partner and even less a silent partner; we shall be equal partners or no partners at all. We have expressed our opposition to eminent domain, our concerns about the research facilities, displacement, and housing affordable to our communities, and so far Columbia's trustees have failed miserably. The history of Columbia's relationship with the communities is one that is spotty at best. The good the communities do-and they do a lot of good-the trustees trample on with arrogant disdain and lack of respect for our communities, believing that they best know what is good for our community. This is shameful and a formula for failure. Columbia may get their expansion over the objections of the community, but then Columbia will no longer be the great institution, the cradle of honesty, integrity and altruism it claims to be. The full weight of that disgrace will fall on the shoulders of the trustees who presided over the moral downfall of a great educational institution turned into some sort of mercantilistic, neocolonial entity that should no longer call itself Columbia University.

HOW TO MEDIATE MANHATTANVILLE: A NEW NEGOTIATING PARTNER IS BORN

City Limits WEEKLY
Week of: December 4, 2006
Number: 564

HOW TO MEDIATE MANHATTANVILLE:

A NEW NEGOTIATING PARTNER IS BORN

A different kind of local body, created to help shape Columbia University’s development plan, could become a “community benefits” trendsetter.
> By Jimmy Vielkind

There are 268 active “local development corporations” in New York state, according to the Secretary of State’s office, charged with encouraging private business investment in everything from Rensselaer County to Yonkers Baseball.

One of the newest, the West Harlem Local Development Corporation, is unique. It is not directly involved in building affordable housing or creating jobs, but rather with negotiating and enforcing a community benefits agreement with Columbia University as the school pushes to build a new campus on a 17-acre site just north of 125th Street. In the past few years, community benefits agreements have emerged as vital to large development projects in New York, and this LDC was formed in an attempt to answer the question of precisely who in a given community should sit across the negotiating table.

The project aims to include laboratory facilities, a public magnet school and a new facility for Columbia’s business school, as well as university housing and a park. The area is now largely used for light industry, which Columbia has said it hopes to remove in order to create a contiguous campus. Concerns about displacing current businesses and residents as well as the size and scope of the project have led to everything from skepticism to outright opposition among members of the community.

The new LDC “is an experiment,” said Mercedes Narciso, the assistant director of community planning at the Pratt Center for Community Development. Narcisco helped develop a comprehensive plan for Community Board 9 in West Harlem – commonly dubbed a “197-a” after the relevant section of the City Charter – of the sort that community boards throughout the city can adopt to set a non-binding framework for future development. Board 9 began working on its plan in 1990, long before Columbia announced its intention to expand, and the 197-a differs from Columbia’s new blueprint on how the proposed expansion site should be zoned.

Columbia released its expansion plans in April 2004, as CB9 was reviewing preliminary drafts of the 197-a. Differences between the two emerged, and – with the encouragement of city agencies, City Councilmember Robert Jackson, who represents the area, and Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff – CB9 and Columbia started meeting to determine the best avenue toward finding common ground. Once Columbia committed to sign a community benefits agreement, the question arose: “With whom?”

“The New York City charter does not indicate that the community boards have the power to negotiate community benefits agreements,” said Patricia Jones, who is both the chairperson of CB9’s 197-a Plan Committee and co-chair of the Manhattanville Rezoning Task Force, as well as a vice-chair of CB9. She is now the LDC president.

“The goal is through the seats on the board, as well as forming working groups or committees and additional outreach, to look at what would meet the needs of and be representative of the community district,” Jones said.

Those needs include addressing high unemployment and the rising rents that are making it difficult for lifelong residents to stick around. The community board has said that any agreement must cover affordable housing, jobs, job training, and access to new facilities, among other things.

Balancing those interests is no small feat, according to Brad Lander, the director of the Pratt Center.

“At one level you want some officially designated body with the blessing of government, but if you have that, then you don’t have a grassroots organization that’s likely to do organizing and apply pressure,” he said. Given the role that CB9 and local elected officials play in the city’s land use review process – which Columbia must undergo to gain the rezoning necessary for the proposed campus – the LDC model seemed logical for negotiating a community benefits agreement.

Lander faulted the agreements signed by Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion for the Bronx Terminal Market and new Yankee stadium for lacking a grassroots component. And not enough community stakeholders participated in negotiating the benefits agreement with developer Bruce Ratner over his proposed Atlantic Yards development, he said.

Looking ahead, Lander said he wouldn’t be surprised if something akin to the West Harlem arrangement arose in Coney Island, where developer Thor Equities has proposed a $1.5 billion makeover of the amusement park. “But for a [benefits agreement] to make sense, it’s really any project where a private developer is taking the lead,” he added.

The West Harlem LDC (www.westharlemldc.org) now has 19 members representing area tenants, businesses, elected officials and CB9, as well as environmental, cultural and faith-based organizations.

Among them is Tom DeMott, who leads the Coalition to Preserve Community, a grassroots organization in Harlem formed in response to the project that has been vocally critical of Columbia’s plans. He remains unconvinced that the new body has the resolve to strike a sufficiently aggressive stance on behalf of the community.

“I’m certainly pessimistic. When we’re looking at decisions to be made on the bottom line in terms of negotiating points, I believe we’ll be at a disadvantage because people who are very used to compromising will be a dominant force,” said DeMott, charging that the LDC was “diluted” by the presence of elected officials.

All the players acknowledge the process will take time. Actually forming the LDC was as simple as filing the necessary paperwork to create a nonprofit corporation, but filling its board was slower. This process stretched into autumn, and although the city announced the LDC’s creation in June and said negotiations were expected over the summer, they have yet to start. Columbia had refrained from negotiating with other parties at the request of CB9, but is eager to begin.
“We are looking forward to starting negotiations,” said Robert Kasdin, Columbia’s senior executive vice president. “The participants in the LDC are volunteering their time to make the LDC model work and deliver real, meaningful benefits to the affected communities … as a result, we have to be patient to see that solutions arise that are as legitimate as possible and truly a benefit to the university and the community.”

City officials have encouraged the dialogue. The New York City Economic Development Corporation provided $350,000 and a professional mediator, John Bickerman, to facilitate negotiations. There is no formal place in current review processes for a community benefits agreement, and Mayor Bloomberg has not consistently supported such agreements.

"We are committed to working with all stakeholders to maintain a process that will provide clear direction in shaping a future for Manhattanville,” Deputy Mayor Doctoroff said in a press release earlier this year.

“It’s exciting now, but the devil is in the details,” said Narciso, of the Pratt Center. “We’ll see how it’s going to work out.”

- Jimmy Vielkind

The Tale of Three Harlems

Date: Mon, 04 Dec 2006 07:27:47 -0500
To:
From: "Tenant"
Subject: The Tale of Three Harlems

New York Sun
December 4, 2006 Edition > Section: New York >

The Tale of Three Harlems
BY MICHAEL STOLERDecember 4, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/44549

For those who love the dynamism of New York, it was an extraordinary day on Friday ­ with the topping off, on Central Park North, of a new condominium project that is part of what is often called the Harlem renaissance. As the rain clouds cleared, a wonderful view came into focus: the green elegance of the park to the south and one of the most fascinating real estate stories in the city to the north.

Can it be true that everyone wants to live in Harlem? It depends. There are three distinct neighborhoods ­ East, Central, and West Harlem. By geography, East Harlem begins on 96th Street and runs to 135th Street between the East River and Fifth Avenue. Central Harlem encompasses 96th Street and Fifth Avenue from Morningside Park to East 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue between 125th and 155th streets. West Harlem is between 110th and 155th streets from St. Nicholas and Morningside Park to the Hudson River.

There are residential condominium developments in various stages of construction all over Harlem. In the heart of Central Harlem, the topping off ceremony was at 111 Central Park North, a joint venture of the Athena Group and the City Investment Fund LP.

It's a luxury 20-story condominium project comprising 48 residential units, with approximately 9,500 square feet of ground floor retail space and 48 condominium parking spaces. All apartments are on the park, and virtually all have balconies or exterior space with views of Central Park North. The building, on Lenox Avenue and Central Park North, has great transportation, with the subway less than 50 feet from the entrance. Times Square is less than a 10-minute subway ride away.

"Approximately 30% of the units have been presold, including a complete floor of 5,200 square feet, for $6.6 million, or approximately $1,200 per square foot," the president of the Athena Group, Louis Dubin, told my class at the New York University Real Estate Institute last week. He said that "for the first time you can purchase your dream apartment on the park and have your car in the garage below. Parking space condominiums are expected to sell at a starting price of $75,000."

"Breathtaking" is the word Mr. Dubin used to describe the view of Central Park from the residents' lounge and terrace. He told my class that his group was in discussions with what he called "major luxury food markets," which he said are scarce in the immediate area. He also said a number of banks and drug stores are interested, though he said the group prefers "to provide the infrastructure of a gourmet foods market for the new owners and the community.
"It struck me as an illuminating comment about the changing scene in Central Harlem."

The initial response from the public has confirmed the partnership belief in the quality of the location even in a more difficult overall condominium sales market," the president of the City Investment Fund, Thomas Lydon Jr., said. "This is a testament to the changing opportunities in Harlem to attract a broader range of buyers from all over the city.""Over the past eight year we have purchased more than 3,000 units in East, Central. and West Harlem," the president of Tahl Propp Equities, Joseph Tahl, told me. "Most of our properties continue to remain as rentals."

The overwhelming majority is affordable housing. In November 2003, the company purchased the Normandy, at 100 W. 19th St. on Lenox Avenue. It converted the building into 25 four-bedroom condominiums of approximately 1,600 square feet, which sold at an average of $1.1 million.

"Harlem continues to steadily emerge as an attractive, affordable, and ‘cool' alternative to other neighborhoods in Manhattan," Mr. Tahl said. "Large apartments in pre-war buildings, with top-of-the-line amenities and finishes, are available for less than half the cost of comparable downtown properties. Harlem has gone from just being cheaper to being less expensive and hot."

"Earlier this year we were able to achieve a price of $1,325 million for a 2,000-square-foot condominium unit in a three-unit building named the Carriage House, located at 124th Street between Frederick Douglas and Adam Clayton Powell," a principal at R&B Development, Jeffrey Bennett, said. "Today we are building two new condominium developments, one being a converted warehouse, a SoHo-type loft building in the Heart of Central Harlem, SoHo North, an 11-unit condominium. Our second project is a ground up building located at 127th Street between Fifth and Lenox, 23 units, ranging in size from 800 to 1,750 square feet with 10 condominium parking spaces projected to sell for $65,000 to $80,000 per space."

Mr. Bennett said, "The profile of the purchaser is residents of Harlem, Europeans, and people from Lower Manhattan, who are getting a big bang for their buck. They are getting the quality of higher end downtown apartments at half the price."

The largest number of residential developments is being built in East and Central Harlem, where the prices of the condominium units are ranging between $500 and $750 a square foot.

One of the first developers of for-sale housing in Central Harlem was Suna Levine, a joint venture of Alan and Stuart Match Suna and Jeffrey Levine. The Renaissance was created under the ANCHOR program of the City of New York, which provided the developer the land for a site at 116th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard at no cost. A total of 240 limited equity cooperative apartments and 70,000 square feet of retail space was created in a lot that had been vacant for more than 20 years. At the time of occupancy in 2001, the purchaser paid approximately $200 a square foot for their apartments. Today, units are being sold for in excess of $500 a square foot."

At the initiative of the New York City Housing Partnership in association with New York City Housing Preservation Department and the New York City Housing Development Corporation, we were able to create a marketable for-sale development in Central Harlem which opened the gates for lending institutions to establish the criteria for pricing for all for sale projects which followed," the principal at Suna Levine, Mr. Levine, said. "This project broke the dam for private lending institutions to finance for sale housing in Central Harlem."

In partnership with Glenwood Management and under the Cornerstone program initiative, which provided the land at no cost to the developer, Levine Builders created the first 80/20 market rate and affordable housing in their development called Hampton Court, on East 102nd Street and First Avenue in East Harlem. This 232-unit mixed-use rental apartment building included neighborhood retail and a Duane Reade as well as a 54,000-square-foot community facility that houses offices for Social Security as well as the Doe Fund and Mount Sinai, all of which bring valuable services and jobs to the community.

Five years ago, the Briarwood Organization built a total of 48 three-family homes on East 116th and East 117th streets on Madison and Fifth avenues. "These buildings sold for between $257,000 to $480,000, and were offered to families whose annual income is between 80% to 130% of the area median income," the president of Briarwood Organization, Vincent Riso, said. "Today these units are selling for $1.2 million."

Recently, Briarwood completed 14 new three-family homes and a total of 111 limited equity cooperative apartments in two buildings on 119th Street between First and Second avenues. All of the units have been sold to families earning between 80% and 130% of the area median income. Mr. Riso said. "Most of the purchasers of the homes and the cooperative are single, educated minority women who were fortunate to be selected by lottery to purchase their units," he said.

Probably the largest purchaser of residential housing and sites is Columbia University, which has announced its ambitious program to acquire and develop housing as well as educational facilities on more than 17 acres in West Harlem. A new campus is planned between 125th and 133rd streets and the Hudson River. A limited number of new residential condominiums are being built in West Harlem.

Due to the slowdown in the condominium sales market, prices for developable land are decreasing slowly. The highest price for land is in West Harlem, with a range of about $175 to $200 a developable square foot. In Central Harlem, prices are ranging between $110 and $150 a developable foot. The lowest are in East or Spanish Harlem, where the prices have dropped to as little as $100 a developable square foot.

More than 40 new condominium developments are in various stages of construction in East and Central Harlem. Many of these are experiencing difficulty in sales. This is due to the increased number of available units, and the distance from subways and other mass transportation.In certain instances, many of the developers have been forced to reduce the prices that they expected to achieve on the sale of the units. Lending institutions are applying the brakes to providing construction financing to developers with limited experience who intend to construct new developments in Harlem. Few new projects will be financed for inexperienced developers who propose developments in remote sites, with limited transportation and the least desirable locations. Developers must be cognizant that Harlem is three distinct neighborhoods and condominiums in Harlem will not fetch $800 to more than $1,000 a square foot unless the development is in a prime location, with excellent sponsorship and unique amenities and transportation.

I have to concur with the chairman of Rubenstein Public Relations, Howard Rubenstein, when he said, at a conference less than 15 months ago, "that there are no bad neighborhoods in New York City," especially with what's taking place in Harlem.

Mr. Stoler, a contributing editor of The New York Sun, is a television broadcaster and a senior principal at a real estate investment fund. He can be reached at mstoler@newyorkrealestatetv.com.

December 4, 2006 Edition > Section: New York >
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

eminent domain position (from across the Hudson)

BRUCE ROSEN wrote:

Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:09:33 -0500
From: "BRUCE ROSEN"
To: reysmont
Subject: eminent domain position (from across the Hudson)

a serendipitous find.....go to the APA/NJ website at http://www.njapa.org/index.html & click the 6-page pdf "Position Statement on Redevelopment Planning and the Exercise of Eminent Domain"


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