At a meeting with Manhattanville residents on March 17, Columbia officials heard familiar pushback to their construction plans—and made a few concessions of their own.
Over 75 local residents showed up to hear about pest control practices around the main construction site at Broadway and 129th Street and a program to provide air-conditioning units for some residents of 3333 Broadway.
Philip Pitruzzello, Columbia’s vice president of facilities, and Manny Guzman, owner of the firm handling Columbia’s pest management in Manhattanville, gave presentations at the general meeting of Community Board 9—a setting where the University’s expansion plans are more often criticized than explained.
Residents were skeptical of both the construction plan and the pest control system, which Guzman explained as a “common-sense approach to pest control … with minimal impact on the environment.” The pest control project includes non-pesticide measures such as baiting and trapping, tracking movement in the project area, and monitoring sanitation practices on the construction site.
Despite residents’ assertions that the neighborhood is dealing with a new rodent problem, Guzman said the Columbia construction has not impacted rodent levels in Manhattanville.
“We monitored the surrounding areas and the site and we didn’t see any increase in activity in rodents before and after any disturbance was made,” Guzman said, attributing any increase in rodents to garbage or weather changes.
“There’s a lot of things that can contribute to an increase in rodents,” said Guzman. “It’s one of those things you have to evaluate a little bit more.”
Georgiette Morgan-Thomas, CB9 health committee chair, was still concerned about the limited pesticide use, and demanded that Guzman provide the community board with a full list of pesticides used on site.
Community members had even stronger views when it came to the air conditioning program at 3333 Broadway, which led to Pitruzello committing the University to a meeting with the tenants association at a later date.
Recently, the University announced that any tenants of 3333 Broadway with windows facing 133rd Street can apply for an air conditioner and free installation from the University, following a study that showed that 3333 apartments “may experience increases in noise levels,” according to Pitruzello.
Though Pitruzello claimed the units are free of charge, the University will not be covering any increases in electric bills, repairs, or filter changes—provoking outrage from the members of the audience, which was larger than those of the previous community meetings where the proposal had been presented.
“To give me an air conditioner if I’m already struggling to pay an electric bill every month puts me at a great hardship if now I cannot open my windows,” Morgan-Thomas said. “To just say that’s not part of the plan, it’s not acceptable.”
Gricel Thompson, the representative for the 3333 Broadway Tenants Association, said, “Frankly, the tenants at 3333 are, to put it mildly, very angry at Columbia University and the impact we are being forced to endure.”
“Columbia University is a very large, very resourceful institution—somewhere they can find the funding,” she added.
Thompson said that the tenants feel “disrespected” because Columbia has not consulted or met with them on this issue.
“It would be very helpful if Columbia sat down with the residents of those buildings and had a specific discussion with them,” CB9 chair Larry English said.
Other residents wondered why 3333 had been singled out for this program.
Ex-CB9 chair Maritta Dunn, who lives directly across from the construction on 130th Street, said that she thinks the University unfairly bypassed her building in its noise study.
“My community is very much impacted and inconvenienced … by the noise,” she said. “I think because they don’t actually come on site themselves they miss what the people who live here actually experience every day.”
abby.mitchell@columbiaspectator.com
COMMENTS
Comments will be moderated in accordance with our comment policy