Manhattanville controversy
In the summer of 2003, President Bollinger announced the University's intentions to build a satellite campus extension in the area bounded by 125th and 133rd Streets between Broadway and 12th Avenue, an are of approximately 18 acres. Manhattanville is an industrial and largely depopulated area northwest of campus. Controversy surrounds the impact of Columbia's plans on the neighborhood and the possibility of the state using eminent domain to condemn properties in the area. Some of the objection surrounds the planned construction of a Bio Safety Level 3 laboratory on the campus.
The Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification is the main student group against expansion. The Coalition to Preserve Community is a neighborhood group dedicated to stopping the expansion.
Contents
The Columbia Plan and the Community Plan
forthcoming
The Columbia Plan
Columbia has retained world renowned architect Renzo Piano to lay the master plan for the expansion, a plan which Bollinger has insisted must be implemented either in whole or not at all. Current plans call for the first phase of construction to include new sites for the Business School, the School of the Arts, the newly created Jerome Green Neuroscience Research Center, and a K-8 public Magnet school under Columbia's direction for children of northern Manhattan residents.
The 197a Plan
Support of the plan
- Expansion creates new job opportunities[1] in the neighborhood
- Expansion leads to more commerce in the area and in New York City[2]
- Plan includes community amenities including the creation of parkland and the creation of Columbia secondary school
Objections to the plan
- The expansion would considerably change the character of the neighborhood
- The expansion would require residents in the neighborhood to relocate[3]
- The expansion would eliminate several business operating in the area
- The University has indicated it would use eminent domain if necessary
