Monday Demo Against Expansion

To Coalition to Preserve Community members and others interested: 11/24/07

ALL OUT THIS MONDAY (11/26/07) TO PROTEST THE CITY PLANNING VOTE WHICH WILL
BE HELD AT 1:00PM AT 22 READE STREET. IT WILL BE HELD IN SPECTER HALL, A SMALL
ROOM WHICH COLUMBIA ALWAYS FILLS WITH ALL ITS EMPLOYEES TO KEEP THE COMMUNITY
OUT. PLEASE COME OUT BY 11:30AM TO GET A SEAT. THE COALITION TO PRESERVE
COMMUNITY WILL HOLD A PRESS CONFERENCE AFTER THE VOTE. READ CHAIR BURDEN'S
COMMENTS BELOW, AND OUR COMMENTS AND COME OUT AND SPEAK UP.

(1) This Monday, Nov. 26th, at 1:00PM, the City Planning Commissioners will
cast their votes against the Harlem community in favor of powerful Columbia.
Even before the Final Environmental Impact Statement had been released, Chair
Amanda Burden announced the Commission's (and the Mayor's) position as she read
the Department Recommendations Opening Statement at the CPC Review Session if
the CB 9 197-a Plan and Columbia University Proposal held on11/13/07. We
have pasted in the entire statement at bottom of this E-mail, and have excerpted
and commented on some of it a directly below:

From Burden's 11/13/07 statement:
"The Commission has been guided by the principle that both should be reviewed

simultaneously and that each should be afforded equal treatment in the
process."

Coalition to Preserve Community comment:
Saying Harlem got "equal treatment" in this process is like telling us that
BP Stringer did not sell out the community when he failed to support the
Community Board's 32 to 2 vote against Columbia and cut his deal to support its
eviction plan. They are paving the way for displacement, eminent domain,
environmental hazards from the bathtub to bio-level #3 labs, and the elimination of a
diverse community.

Burden:
"It is important to note that at the end of its ULURP review period,

Community Board 9 significantly revised its plan by increasing the

community facility FAR to the same FAR as proposed by Columbia, and by

eliminating the ground floor requirement for manufacturing uses. As

discussed at our October 29 Review Session that development under the

revised 197-a plan would therefore result in an area predominantly

devoted to Columbia University. As a result, we no longer have before

us two radically different visions of land use in Manhattanville, but

instead two different visions of how Columbia can, and should grow in

Manhattanville."

Coalition to Preserve Community comment:
So even with all the compromises that CB 9 offered in the last few weeks, the
City only supports the all or nothing concept. Burden and the Commission give
lip service to the 197A Community Plan, and then think that the peasants up
in the low income, "minority" neighborhood will sit back and accept their
double talk!

Burden:
"The 197a plan, on the other hand, would not permit this concentration

of uses, missing an important opportunity to transform and activate

125th Street as a connector between the upland neighborhoods and the

waterfront and precluding the range and scale of open spaces made

possible by the Columbia plan."

Coalition to Preserve Community comment:
Well the conflicts of interest of City Planning Commissioners are clear so it
is no wonder why the Commission is handing over 17 plus acres to Columbia. We
have called for Cantor, Knuckles and Williams to recuse themselves from
voting on Manhattanville issues, but the fact is that the whole system is rigged
in favor of the real estate industry and that means Columbia. Burden literally
did not even wait for the final impact statement to be released before she
announced that the fix was in! The nerve of Burden to make claims that the
Columbia plan allows for an integration of uses. This is an all or nothing, eminent
domain driven, eviction plan which will cause massive displacement. Columbia
wants to use eminent domain against other entities besides the private property
owners so it can avoid other lengthy processes which could occur with the MTA
and other corporate owners. City Planning is not planning, it is
participating in evicting.

Burden:
"On balance, the two plans before us are very strong but as I said earlier,
differ fundamentally in their visions of how Columbia can and should grow in
Manhattanville."

Coalition to Preserve Community comment:
And the priority always is the entity with the power and the millions spent
on lobbying has certainly paid off for Columbia. At its heart this is a
decision based on race and class, and no amount of spinning by Burden, the Mayor, all
Columbia's politicians and lobbyists, or other compromisers can avoid the
ugly racism and classism behind this land grab. They all want to avoid the issue
of eminent domain, but it is not going to go away, and neither are the folks
who will be sitting in front of the bulldozers after this "equal treatment"
ULURP process reaches its conclusion.

WE KNOW MONDAY IS A WORK DAY, BUT DO YOUR BEST TO COME OUT THIS MONDAY.