Tuesday, I sat with a broad coalition of students in a meeting with Maxine Griffith, executive vice president for government and community affairs—in layman’s terms, the lead administrator responsible for handling Columbia’s expansion into Manhattanville. The concerns we have about the plan are diverse and abundant—the lack of mitigation for the vast amount of residential displacement the plan will engender, the potential forcible seizure of property by eminent domain, the creation of an entirely new enclave within a predominantly working-class, minority environment—but they all boiled down to one thing. We believe that Columbia has shown a wanton disregard for the principle of local democracy that its institutional principles stand for. In its rush to push its plan through by any means necessary, the University is sacrificing its entire theoretical belief system, and losing its identity.
In August of this year, Community Board 9 rejected Columbia’s rezoning proposal by a nearly unanimous vote of 32-2, outlining 10 demands that have to be met before the plan will be approved. These demands do not deal with minor technical issues that can be tweaked within the context of Columbia’s plan—they demand, for example, that any land-use compromise be worked out within the framework of its own 197-a Plan and for the institution of a comprehensive affordable housing program. Despite senior executive vice president’s Robert Kasdin’s earlier assertion that it was “not a vote against the plan,” the decision constituted a stinging rebuke to a University administration that always claimed that it had a solid base of support in the community. Yet, despite this rejection by the representatives of the people that would be most affected by the plan, Columbia decided to use its political muscle to push the plan through the rest of the approval process.
On what grounds did the University feel itself entitled to ignore the democratic decision of the people of West Harlem? According to Griffith, the University is engaging in a productive negotiation with the community actors involved, through the supposedly democratic and open Uniform Land Use Review Process, which requires that the plan be reviewed at public hearings held by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, the City Planning Commission, and the City Council in which all can deliver testimony on the record. Trust the process, the administration tells us.
Should we really?
ULURP was a reform measure created in 1976 to make sure that the kind of closed-door deals that characterized the urban renewal era would not be repeated. Indeed, it does ensure that community members at least have knowledge of the exact form of development that is being proposed. However, experience has demonstrated that, when power relations are incorporated into the equation, the “voice” that opponents of the expansion have becomes entirely superficial. I sat through almost five hours of testimony at the borough president’s hearing, in which testimony after testimony from community residents urged Stringer to stand up and reject Columbia’s plan. All those that testified in favor of the plan were either Columbia affiliates or contractors who had worked with the University in the past. After delivering my testimony imploring Stringer to reject the University’s plan, Stringer thanked me, saying that the most important part of the experience for him was seeing that Columbia students are personally getting involved in the issue.
The following week, Stringer announced his support for the expansion plan.
The supposedly “democratic” review process in which we should supposedly trust is a tragic farce. It is a farce because the Columbia administration expects us to believe that the fact that Bill Lynch, the former deputy mayor of the city and one of the most influential Democratic lobbyists in the country, is the plan’s paid lobbyist has no effect on the decision. The stated support of current mayor Michael Bloomberg, former mayor David Dinkins, and the Manhattan borough president, in the University’s alternate universe, will in no way prejudice the City Council and the City Planning Commission. It is tragic, however, because real people’s lives are at play here.
What will we, as students, say when we look across 125th Street and see people losing their homes? That we allowed the University to do this, in the name of our interests? That we trusted the process but lost in the end? That what we are seeing is sad, sure, but that neighborhoods change and someone has to lose out?
Such answers are morally indefensible when the fate of thousands is at stake. As members of the University, we need to declare our opposition in the face of the developer. The vote is happening this winter. This winter. Now. We cannot trust the city processes to make a just decision. Now is the time to make sure that our opposition does not go gentle into the good night.
The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in Spanish and Portuguese.