ALI WINSTON

                Jonathan Blitzer

he must be from the University,” an elderly woman said to me as we sat, straining to hear above the fan, at a meeting of Community Board 9 on July 31. “She keeps saying 'we.'”

The woman was right: speaking at the front of the room was Maxine Griffith, Executive Vice President for Government and Community Affairs at Columbia. She had wrested control of the microphone just moments before from a visibly frazzled representative of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill the architectural firm overseeing Columbia's plans for expanding into West Harlem. Marilyn Taylor, who heads up the firm's design team, had just finished her presentation and was accepting questions from the community. As questions turned increasingly into comments, Taylor grew quiet, and Griffith promptly took control. She responded forcefully at times “this is about the university and its needs,” she explained in no uncertain terms to an incredulous questioner but was insistent that the university and the community would cooperate as things moved forward.

The meeting was meant as an update from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's on its most recent revisions to so-called Phase 1 of the university's plans. Taylor had set out to show the community exactly how its recent criticisms were incorporated into the latest modifications of the 17 acre construction site a site that will open for renovation in the next ten years, if all goes according to planned for Columbia.

The community wasn't buying it. “All these changes you're describing,” charged one man in the back of the room, “are being made in response to Columbia's needs, not ours.” Another woman scoffed at what she called the presenter's “architectural semantics,” asserting that “We don't want our lives to be caught in the whirlwind of Columbia's commercial ambition!”

At the core of this debate are two fundamentally incompatible plans for the neighborhood's future the community's 197a plan and the university's 197c plan. The problem with the two, explains Columbia Urban Planning professor Elliot Sclar, is that they've never been reconciled. Put simply, 197a is a general revitalization plan for West Harlem, and includes all the neighborhoods represented by CB9: Hamilton Heights, Manhattanville, and Morningside Heights. 197c is Columbia's plan for the development of the Manhattanville site specifically; in stark contrast to 197a, it is concerned only with how the university will turn a swath of land in Manhattanville into an arm of the Columbia University campus.

Fifteen years ago, Professor Sclar helped Community Board 9 begin the drafting process of its 197a Community Development Plan, a plan that was to establish guidelines for city agencies as they considered future development in the area. CB9's 197a plan does not preclude Columbia's expansion into Manhattanville. What it does do is establish standards for how any kind of development regardless of the developer should proceed so that the needs of the community are considered and protected. The plan protects existing housing and creates new affordable housing; it rules out the use of eminent domain as a tool to evict residents and local businesses; it creates long-term jobs for residents; establishes a “zero-waste” environmental zone; calls on institutions to set aside remaining rent regulated apartments for long term residents, and aims to preserve the architectural and historical integrity of the area.

The University has made no concrete commitment to work 197a into its own proposal, meaning it will not guarantee the defining features of the community's demands: protection of existing housing, the creation of new affordable housing, the maintenance of manufacturing jobs as well as the creation of viable, long-term jobs. Add to this the tragic consequences of secondary displacement and community members have a lot to worry about. As Columbia edges into their community, many who aren't immediately pushed out face the prospect of rising costs of living pressures that will likely force them out of neighborhoods in which they can no longer afford to stay. This threat comes in the midst of a wave of gentrification sweeping much of the city, with rents in Harlem and other low-income communities soaring.

These fears make the university's promise of open public spaces, the vibrant street life, and an accessible marketplace ring hollow. “What about us?” asked one woman at the July 31 meeting. “You keep saying you'd be inviting everyone to these new spaces, but we won't be here, we won't be around to enjoy these changes at all.”

But what made the meeting an “insult” to the community, according to Nellie Bailey of the Coalition to Preserve Community (CPC), was that the university presenters could speak at length about changes relating to their own plan the 197c plan while flouting the most basic priorities of 197a. Chief among such priorities is the issue of eminent domain. The university has refused to rule out the use of eminent domain in securing the remaining 20 percent of the proposed construction site, and President Bollinger has said that anything less than complete control of the site would be unacceptable.

“The first step in negotiations is for the university to take eminent domain off the table because if they don't, then what's the point? They could do whatever they want,” explained Bailey.

According to Mercedes Narciso of the Pratt Institute, local businesses stand to lose the most if the university takes the remaining land through the use of eminent domain. “Current businesses,” said Narciso, “employ a lot of workers from Manhattanville and other local areas. Workers live within close distance of Manhattanville; many of them live in parts of CB9.” One of the most important goals of 197a is to encourage the development of businesses that could employ local labor.

Two businesses  Hudson North America and Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage  have continued to hold out against the university's plan. At the recent CB9 meeting, the owners of both businesses, Anne Whitman and Nick Spreyregen, presented development plans of their own, consistent with 197a and that would leave the neighborhood largely intact. Details of these 197c plans are forthcoming but their viability and their popularity among members of CB9, may mean that the city will consider Whitman's and Spreyregen's plans alongside the 197a and c plans that have already been under review.

ALI WINSTON

It is hard to comprehend the magnitude of what is at stake for the community.

Issues of immediate concern, like job loss, only tell part of the story. A study in 2000 showed unemployment in this community ran at a dismal 18%  double the unemployment rate of Manhattan  and with 15% of the district already employed in the industrial sector, the prospect of work during and after the university's expansion looks bleak at best. The university expects to create some 7,000 jobs related directly to the enlarged Manhattanville campus, mostly in academic, technical, maintenance and support positions. But these are only estimates projected over a 25 to 30 year period. It is not entirely clear whether or not these jobs will even go to people who currently work in the area. And by the time the university creates most of these jobs, it may be too late for some of Manhattanville's current residents to take advantages of them.

Proponents of 197c tend to emphasize just how poor and underdeveloped Manhattanville currently is. They point to the unemployment numbers and describe unused lots, largely unfrequented public spaces, land that is being put to no good use. And herein lies the logic behind the university's expansionist rhetoric. Columbia argues that it will be “making something” of a community in desperate need of change. But when Columbia talks about developing this otherwise underdeveloped area, the university is not actually proposing to develop the community for the residents' benefit. To say, as many have, that the university will be doing Manhattanville a favor, is to ignore the real debate. The university is not trying to revitalize Manhattanville that, after all, is the goal of the 197a plan the university has repeatedly ignored. Instead, the university is going to make use of the neighborhood in ways it, alone, sees fit. It is false to label expansion as revitalization since the development is defined and measured entirely by Columbia and its beneficiaries.

Brett Murphy, a senior studying urban studies and a member of the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification (SCEG) speaks of “expansion with accountability,” a principle SCEG encourages students to think about when evaluating the university's dealings with the community.

“What it mostly boils down to is this,” she said. “Is Columbia going to live up to its mission its talk about working with the community and provide things like affordable housing, preservation of neighborhood, or its it going to be like Columbia going into the community and taking it over entirely for its own use. The 197a plan is so much more of a compromise than people realize &it's mostly about preserving the community's that there now.”

Columbia students seem to have major misconceptions about the 197a plan evidenced by a Columbia Spectator poll that showed 70% of students knew little to nothing of expansion. “197a is about forming a collaboration with the community &so that people who aren't immediately displaced can still live there,” suggests Murphy. People tend to think about 197a and 197c as proposals opposed on the single issue of whether or not the university has the right to expand. The reason for this appears, in part, to be the result of Columbia's public relations campaign, which leaves those with stakes in the university feeling as though the university has no choice but to expand.

What's at issue then, is the community's right to determine its own future by solving its own problems, and Columbia's designs on the area are only the latest of many obstacles. 197a's troubles go back further than Columbia's plan. “City officials have never really embraced 197a,” Sclar argues, “because it empowers community boards and hence it undermines their [city officials'] political ability to make final decisions &The strategy then is to ignore it to the extent that they can.” A plan recommended by the community board is just that recommended. The community boards have little legal power.

Community members fear that their neighborhood will be transformed into a sprawling college campus, replete with tall buildings, chemical research facilities with uncertain environment impact, and an economics and demography all its own. “CB9 and the greatest majority of our community,” says Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, Chair of CB9, “is not against the 'expansion' per se; what the community has expressed very loudly &is that they prefer that the expansion follow the CB9 197a plan guidelines.” It is only with 197a, community members rightly maintain, that the community can retain any shred of its present identity given the university's aspirations for its future. And if Columbia is ever to persuade the community that it can be a committed and considerate neighbor, it must show that the well-being of Manhattanville's residents is not merely incidental to the university's own goals of erecting an attractive campus that can keep it competitive with the nation's other top-tier institutions.

This is a community in search of a future,” posited Taylor at the recent CB9 meeting. But according to Columbia's logic, the university knows better than the residents themselves what it is the community needs as their neighborhood hangs on the brink of a major upheaval. But for now, as the university appears to ignore 197a almost completely, the community's greatest opportunity is to wrest some concessions from Columbia in the form of what's called a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA).

In a joint announcement mid-June by CB9, Councilman Robert Jackson (D-CD7), and the New York City Economic Development Corporation, a group of community representatives indicated its readiness to enter into discussions with the university over community benefits. This group of community representatives, known as the Local Development Corporation (LDC), includes “highly recognized, civic motivated and committed individuals [who] have been selected through a very open process,” explained Reyes-Montblanc, one of the nine current members of the recently assembled LDC. Their backgrounds and positions are designed to span the interests of the community so that community members feel fairly represented. The Community Benefits Agreement is aimed at mitigating the impact the university's expansion will have on residents, and both the university and the LDC seem genuinely hopeful about the possibility of a CBA that can address residents' needs.

“We're ready to listen and be responsive,” said Griffith, as she spoke of upcoming talks between Columbia and the LDC. “This is a process that is new-ish on both sides and there really aren't any parameters as talks move forward.” Griffith sees a CBA as an opportunity for the university to do what it can despite the fact that conflicts over 197a and c remain largely unresolved. Referring to the incompatibility of the two plans, she maintained “that doesn't absolve us of responsibility for doing what we can.”

As for what a possible CBA might look like — it may be too early to tell. Reyes-Montblanc says he doesn't expect 100 percent agreement between the university and the LDC, but expects agreement “closer to 90 percent than not.” His goals for the negotiations are ambitious:

“I expect that we'll cover all issues,” he wrote in an email, “including the full spectrum from jobs (construction, technical, professional, academic) &[to] an affordable housing trust fund &(so that the LDC can develop housing affordable to the community and in accordance with our 197a plan)...to educational and training components &. [We'll also cover] &the permanent protection of rent regulated apartments and many other issues.”

For all of Reyes-Montblanc's optimism, the establishment of the LDC and the start of CBA negotiations in some way represent the beginning of the end of opposition to the university's expansion. The community has no choice but to take advantage of any opportunity it can to secure benefits from the university. Negotiating benefits does seem like a quiet capitulation — an acknowledgement that the university's plans will move forward and the community's will not be given equal consideration. Of course, securing benefits and opposing Columbia's plan are not mutually exclusive. And if the Atlantic Yards deal in Brooklyn is any indicator, then perhaps the negotiation of a CBA portends increased resistance to development. For now, it's too early to tell. Columbia, for its part, will have to overcome the distrust it's engendered in the community over the last forty years through its consistent secrecy.

The most important decisions to be made concerning the fate of Manhattanville will occur this year while the LDC and Columbia hammer out a CBA and come to some decision about the role of eminent domain. Students, who make up the largest portion of the Columbia community, have a major part to play in pressuring the university to deal openly and fairly with the community. And a first step, SCEG, Nellie Bailey, and CB9 seem universally to agree, is that students should develop a broad and informed consciousness about the university's expansion plans. They need to understand how deep residents' worries run.

“There is a great deal of fear in Harlem,” Bailey said. “It is almost palpable, and the fear is from the very real concern that people will no longer be able to live there.”