Residents, politicians, activists envision impact of NYU’s long-term expansion plan

New York University scored a key victory last week as the City Council approved a slightly scaled back version of the school’s controversial 2031 expansion plan. While the project was pared down, it will still add close to 6 million square feet of academic space throughout the city. Nearly half of the expansion, equal to about the size of the Empire State Building, would be concentrated on two Washington Square-area superblocks located near the school’s main campus in Greenwich Village.

The NYU plan calls for four new buildings on the two large blocks bordered by LaGuardia Place and Mercer, West Houston and West 3rd streets. The buildings will be used for both academic and residential purposes.
The plan has generated an enormous amount of discussion and controversy both for and against since it was unveiled by NYU officials in 2010. Moreover, the Council’s approval comes at a time when residents uptown are waging a battle of their own against Columbia University’s mammoth, long-range plan in West Harlem that includes a 17-acre, $6.3 billion campus expansion.

Opponents of the NYU plan, including village residents, activists, NYU faculty members and others, have already vowed to continue the fight, including an expected legal challenge, to get the plan sent back to the drawing board and significantly revised. The plan has the support of the mayor and is unlikely to be vetoed.
But what if the current incarnation of the plan is upheld and remains largely unchanged? What will Greenwich Village look like in 2031? Will it be congested, overcrowded and largely unlivable, as many naysayers suggest, or will the plan usher in a new chapter of peaceful coexistence between NYU and its Village neighbors?

“When I ask myself what the Village will look like in 20 years, the first thing I see is large, concrete, functional-looking buildings casting long shadows over the neighborhood; absorbing all the light. The only outdoor space for people to congregate will be Washington Square Park, and you know how crowded that gets now!” said Janet Hayes, who lives in a high-rise co-op at 505 LaGuardia Place near Houston.

A longtime resident of the Village and a local Republican leader, Hayes predicted that NYU’s plan, if allowed to come to fruition, would greatly affect life in the Village and not in a good way.

“Take grocery shopping, using the dry cleaner or going out to dinner, for example—full-service restaurants will be replaced with beer halls, pizza places and other fast-food sources,” Hayes predicted.

She added that more stores would cater to NYU and transit would be a “nightmare”; subways and buses would be overcrowded all day long, and “forget catching a cab.”

In support of NYU’s plan, Borough President Scott Stringer, who most recently helped to broker concessions from the school, cited substantial economic benefits for New York City, which include the creation of 9,500 permanent jobs and as many as 18,200 construction jobs over the next 20 years.

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, has been one of the plan’s most outspoken critics and has worked to help mobilize village residents, activists and like-minded politicians in opposition to a project he has called a “grandiose scheme of a private university’s super-rich board and its president.”

Immediately following last week’s Council vote, Berman said in a press release, “The NYU expansion plan will turn a residential neighborhood into a company town and subject it to 20 straight years of construction.”
Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit planning organization that serves the tri-state area, however, said NYU’s expansion is important to the city for many reasons.

“NYU’s continued success is vital to the economy of New York. The university is among the city’s largest private employers,” Yaro noted. “NYU can continue to attract top students and scholars only if it is able to modernize and expand…By emphasizing density, the NYU plan will avoid harming any of the Village’s historic fabric.”

Asked about possible loss of open space and congestion resulting from NYU’s plan, Council Member Margaret Chin seemed confident the issue has been addressed. “Under this plan, the open space on the superblocks will be improved and it will be fully accessible by the public for the first time,” Chin said in an emailed statement.
“The padlocks and fences around the Sasaki Garden will finally come down, and this park—which few New Yorkers know about—will finally be open to the public. We will also gain a pedestrian walkway, or ‘greenstreet,’ behind the new Zipper Building, which will connect the Village with Soho,” she said.

The Council member added that the walkway would be lined with cafés and restaurants and would have an indoor atrium open to the public year-round.

A spokesperson for Chin also noted that the university would be “bound” by a 500-page restrictive declaration document that specifies what the school can and can’t do with regard to construction, building and other logistics related to the plan.

For example, the school has committed to limit construction to the hours between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and to limit weekend construction. In addition, the school has promised to assist with construction mitigation issues related to air quality and noise by equipping affected apartments with soundproofing materials.

“This plan is a way to start over. It is a pathway forward,” Chin said. “This plan integrates the Greenwich Village community and NYU in ways that have never been done before.”

Terri Cude, co-chair of Community Action Alliance against NYU 2031 and a member of Community Board 2 (CB2), isn’t so sure of the plan’s integration into the neighborhood.

“If NYU builds everything that is in the current plan, we will have a very dark neighborhood,” Cude said.
Asked about the various committees that were formed by NYU to address community concerns and incorporate residents’ needs into the plan, Cude said, “They attended all the meetings and listened to everything we had to say. The only thing they didn’t do is modify the plan at all based on the input.”

But the concessions brokered by Stringer in early April did in fact include a significant overall density reduction, preservation of public space as parkland, elimination of a temporary gymnasium on the site of two community playgrounds, elimination of proposed dormitories on the Bleecker Building and an affirmation of NYU’s commitment to provide space for a K-8 school.

Brad Hoylman, former chair of CB2 and candidate for state Senate in District 27, testified before the City Planning Commission back in the spring that the NYU plan would “forever alter the character of the neighborhood, bring in thousands of new people into the area [estimates suggest up to 12,000 people daily] and cause decades of construction disruption for local residents.”

Village residents and community garden members Marcia Lawther and Bob Hirschfeld moved to the neighborhood in the mid-1970s. “It’s invasive. It’s crowded enough as it is,” said Lawther when asked about the expansion.

“In the ’70s, things were much quieter, there was not much going on,” recalled Hirschfeld. “NYU was a separate world. It wasn’t elbowing its way into the community.”

However, signs of hope for the future of the project were evident on Tuesday as legislators lauded a new agreement between NYU and the residents of 505 LaGuardia Place in an effort to maintain long-term affordability at the Mitchell-Lama development.

“I am pleased a deal has been reached and much-needed affordable housing has been preserved in Greenwich Village,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in a prepared statement.

“This agreement guarantees that 505 LaGuardia can maintain affordability and that the working-class families that currently reside there will be able to continue to live in a neighborhood they have long called home.”

Andrew Berman of the GVSHP. Photo by James Kelleher.

University makes modifications to plan, likely to be approved by full Council

By Alissa Fleck
NYU’s modified expansion plan is one step closer to fruition, much to the disappointment of staunchly opposed community members. The City Council’s Zoning Subcommittee and Land Use Committee voted back-to-back on Tuesday in overwhelming support of NYU’s expansion plan, with certain mutually agreed upon modifications.

All nine members of the Zoning Subcommittee voted in favor of the project, while the Land Use Committee voted 19 in favor and one opposed. Councilman Charles Barron was the sole holdout.

“We will regret this,” said Barron, urging his colleagues to have the courage to vote no and “send it back to the drawing board.”
Council members who defended their votes in support expressed immense respect for Councilwoman Margaret Chin’s efforts. They applauded her attempts to negotiate all sides, while maintaining their displeasure with the plan despite the modifications.

Chin, whose district covers Greenwich Village, stated she had not originally supported the proposal, but tried to keep an open mind and find a way to achieve a tolerable medium for all groups involved.

“I’m confident this proposal strikes the appropriate balance,” said Chin. “It holds NYU to its responsibility as a good neighbor.” Chin explained that NYU had made significant concessions and no one got everything they wanted.

“I wholeheartedly believe NYU’s growth will occur at a sustainable pace and not overwhelm the Village,” she said, adding that the school’s willingness to cooperate in the process had been encouraging.

Council members acknowledged continuing chasms between the community and the University. Councilman Vincent Ignizio urged NYU, “Now the real work begins for you. The community has issues with you…Start the rebuilding process today.”

The primary modifications to the original plan include a 20 percent (70,000 square feet) reduction in overall density for an approximate 1.93 million-square-foot expansion, space dedicated to community use, an increase in publicly accessible space and NYU taking responsibility for the maintenance of these open spaces.

“I have put in place strong checks and balances to ensure that NYU holds up its end of the bargain,” said Chin. “If NYU fails to do so, there will be consequences.”

These “checks and balances” include funds set aside to make sure the school adheres to its promises. The university will create a yearly endowment of $150,000 toward open space maintenance, proving they want to move beyond questions of trust to tangible verification.
Brown, when questioned by Councilwoman Jessica Lappin on how the school would fund the project, said financial support would come largely from philanthropy, working capital and fundraising, adding that a certain amount of debt is to be expected. With regard to tuition, she said: “There is always upward pressure on tuition.”

Before the plan went to vote, community member Georgina Bedrosian, who lives in the area in question and opposes the plan, said she was afraid council members would accept some version of the plan.

“It lies primarily on Chin,” said Bedrosian. “We little people can make a lot of noise, but [We’ve] lost out to big real estate.”
Throughout the presentation process, disparaging gestures and outcry from audience members revealed there is still significant tension among community members who feel NYU is not being honest and forthcoming, particularly with regard to public space accessibility and conversion.

Following the vote in favor of the plan, Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, called the plan’s passage a violation of public trust.

“The changes are less bad,” said Berman, “but not less bad enough.” Berman explained that the Council has a strong tendency to defer to local council members, in this case Chin.

NYU Vice President Alicia Hurley said to the press of the Council’s decision: “It’s so important for us to have these opportunities.”
As the session concluded, several audience members were escorted out, chanting: “Shame on you, Chin, you’ve killed the Village!”
The full City Council will convene Tuesday, July 24, to provide the final vote on the plan.

President John Sexton defends plan to the community, and city council members

By Alissa Fleck
City Council members struggled to quell boos, hisses, applause and chants at a hearing on the NYU expansion on Friday, June 29. Even Greenwich Village resident and actor Matthew Broderick showed up to voice an opinion on the controversial proposal; Broderick said NYU 2031 would “destroy the village” by hurting the “quirkiness and humanness” for which it’s known.

Council members largely agreed with Broderick, expressing concern over the plan, which would add 2 million square feet for academic and residential uses. One of the greatest sources of debate was how much community green space the plan would ultimately allow.

The hearing, the last expected before the City Council votes on the expansion proposal in July, incorporated presentations and testimony from opposition and proponents alike. Elected officials, NYU faculty members, community advocates and others came together to debate the highly contentious NYU 2031 plan also known as the “Sexton Plan.”

Two morning rallies proceeded the hearing outside City Hall, with plan opponents having a significantly larger turnout than supporters as people scrambled for space inside to attend a pre-hearing. Opponents held colorful banners that read “NYU 2031 is Wrong for NYC, Wrong for the Village and Wrong for NYU” and appeared to fill the majority of seats in the chambers. Security struggled to allow an even number from both camps to enter as people flooded into chambers.

The proposal, which was announced publicly in 2010, was approved by the City Planning Commission (CPC) on June 6 of this year after receiving feedback from Community Board 2 and Borough President Scott Stringer. The CPC passed the plan along to the City Council with several modifications, including the elimination of a hotel and commercial space.

The hearing opened with a presentation from supporters affiliated with NYU, including university President John Sexton, Tisch Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell, Senior Vice President Lynne Brown and Vice President Alicia Hurley. Council members then thoroughly questioned aspects of the NYU 2031 plan.

Councilwoman Margaret Chin, representing the area contained in the proposal, roused excitement from plan opponents by calling the expansion “unacceptable” and urging for greater balance.

“This plan tries to shoehorn too much into too small a space,” said Chin to wide applause and jazz hands.

The issue of scale was a hot topic. Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, representing parts of the Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island, agreed with Chin, calling the plan “too dense, too big, too tall and too much.” She added it could be made significantly more contextual with its surroundings, agreeing with many dissenters’ arguments against the plan. Lappin also pointed to the contradiction in the university’s choice to grow the undergraduate student population in the past and its current insistence on resource expansion to meet those needs.
Lappin said community members’ wariness about the plan was evident in the overwhelming contact she has received, even as a representative outside the relevant district.

Supporters affiliated with the university said there is a direct correlation between space and the ability to stay competitive with peer universities, while community supporters added that the plan will create jobs and benefit the local economy. NYU representatives have stated the plan will create 18,200 construction jobs and 2,600 opportunities for long-term employment.

Sexton, a lifelong New Yorker, said the university is desperately in need of space, which “translates into talent.” He pointed to the growth of new disciplines—the study of genomes, for instance—and the resulting need to attract the fields’ top researchers.

Currently, according to evidence the school put forth, NYU’s science facilities are outdated and not adequately sophisticated to keep pace with other top research institutes. Up-to-date science labs require additional space and flexibility over the average classroom. Without the necessary facilities, attracting top experts would be near impossible, said Sexton.

Sexton and other supporters continually reiterated that the school has no intention of growing the student body or viewing this as a real estate or corporate development project; it’s about academic necessity and meeting current needs and demands. The students themselves are “the loudest voices” calling for more space, explained Sexton.

Opponents of the plan granted that NYU may be in need of additional space, but encouraged the university to consider development elsewhere, like the Financial District, which would welcome the development, according to downtown District Leader Jenifer Rajkumar. Plan opponents overwhelmingly argued the proposal would change the character and ambiance of the Village, including decreasing green space, and some say it would force residents to live in a construction zone for at least 20 years.

It’s essential for facilities to be developed near the school’s core for many reasons, explained Brown, including efficiently delivering curriculum to undergraduates, creating community, decreasing university costs and not having to duplicate crucial facilities. Proposed changes, NYU claimed, will be built entirely on the school’s existing footprint or space currently owned by the institution.

Hurley responded to accusations against the school by providing a breakdown of space allocation, saying the university is dedicated to transforming current private space into public open space, including increasing open green space.

The debate over whether the plan will increase or decrease public green space is still highly contested on both sides. Council Member Robert Jackson put Sexton on the spot, asking whether he and his other representatives, were being as honest and forthcoming as they possibly could. Audience members’ hisses indicated their opinion as Sexton affirmed he was being truthful.

Some opponents believe the university is being deceptive about its motivations for the project. Many say the school is acting as a corporation rather than a university, with an eye toward taking over its “backyard.” Protesters pointed to a law firm hired by NYU to advocate for the plan, construction worker union members in the crowd who had little understanding of what the plan entailed and the many faculty members against the plan choosing who chose to remain anonymous as evidence of the school’s deceptive tactics.

NYU maintained it has tried to engage the community and remain transparent about the plan for the past five years. While the plan is projected to cost from $3 to $4 billion in total, Sexton asserted it would have no financial impact on NYU students. The City Council is expected to reach a decision by the end of July.

Borough President’s Compromise Not Enough to Sway Public Opinion

On Wed. afternoon (4/25), the City Planning Commission (CPC) held a public hearing at the Museum of the American Indian to hear both concerns and support over the NYU Sexton Plan – a project that would radically expand the NYU campus over a 20 year period.

CPC members heard the raised, and sometimes distressed voices of community members who were against the plan, as the standing room only “crowd” gave raucous applause to members speaking out against the expansion, and provided a chorus of hisses and even outraged shouts to those advocating it.

Members of NYU Faculty weighed in on both sides of the coin. Mary Schmidt Campbell, Dean of the Tisch School of the Arts, advocated on behalf of the plan, citing a lack of performance space and the need to remain competitive as universities around the country put additional pressure on the already taxed School of the Arts.

“We’ve achieved at the highest level and contributed to the creative economy of downtownNew Yorkin spite of the fact that Tisch’s Institute for Performing Arts has, for years, struggled with inadequate, obsolete, sometimes dangerous, and cramped facilities…Our existing facilities are at a crisis point. In order to continue to thrive, we’ve embarked on an ambitious plan to design the world’s finest performing arts training center as part of the 2031 plan.”

Other faculty members were not so supportive of the expansion, which makes The Tisch School seem more like an outlier when compared to many other departments and faculty at the university. However, less than one third of NYU faculty have chosen to publicly align themselves.

Despite concerns over anonymity, a senior faculty member, who was introduced improperly,  spoke out against the Sexton Plan,  urging the CPC to say “N-O” until they “K-N-O-W” more.

The CPC's Public Hearing on the NYU Expansion (Sexton Plan) drew the full attention of the maximum capacity auditorium at the Museum of the American Indian.

“The NYU leadership would have you believe that the university can’t fulfill its educational mission and be a global leader without anEmpire State Building’s worth of square footage squeezed into a few blocks. But the NYU team pushing this plan does not speak for its faculty; for we, too, are the university.”

“As of today, 20 academic departments and programs, including the Department of Economics (which might know something about something) have passed resolutions against this plan overwhelmingly.”

More than anything, however, the public hearing revealed a poor dissemination of information. Many attendees representing NYU and its expansion plan seemed unable to adequately describe different phases of the plan when pressed by the commission, and there was also an apparent disconnect between those who spoke on behalf of the  Sexton plan  sans “Stringer’s Compromise” and those who spoke exclusively of it – which NYU President Sexton agreed to on Apr. 11.

Speaking on behalf of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation (GVSHP), lawyer Randy Mastro urged the CPC to consider the usage of space, and the impact it will have on Greenwich Village.

“This commission is being asked to approve over 2.2 million gross square feet of construction over the next nineteen years that will fundamentally change the character of one of our city’s most beloved neighborhoods – Greenwich Village…yet hundreds of thousands of square feet of this project are not for academic purposes,”

“As a result of this construction, this neighborhood will have to accommodate up to 2,000 new residents, and find itself flooded with more than 10,000 new people visiting the area every day. It will substantially reduce the amount of open space available for community use in an area already lacking such open space.”

Members of the Public Hearing show their opposition to the Sexton Plan

While nearly all of the community members present at the hearing were opposed to the Sexton plan, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Director of Land Use, Brian Cook, spoke on behalf of Stringer, bringing to light many of the Borough President’s amendments – some of them for the first time to the CPC.

“The office [of the Borough President] has maintained a philosophy of seeking ways to strike a balance to ensure that development, when it is occurring, does not overrun or take away things and hurt the community in ways that we can prevent,”

And as he outlined the Borough President’s amendments, Cook commented on the President’s decision to dissuade NYU from building “below-grade” below street level) around parks was perhaps the most popular opposing point made at the hearing.

“The clear direction we heard from the community was taking the below-grade of those parks [Northern Mercer St. Park, Western Mercer St. Park] and tearing out the old trees and what existed, even if they were eventually replaced was an unacceptable line.”

However, when pressed by the City Planning Commission  and the community for information regarding the concessions NYU was unwilling to make at President Stringer’s urging, Mr. Cook declined to comment.

Members of the City Planning Commission, including Chairperson Amanda Burden

As it stands, the City Planning Commission has, at the present time, many more questions than it does answers. In light of the tremendous public opposition to the project, as well as the points raised by several community speakers, it does not appear likely that the CPC will approve the Sexton Plan without at least first requesting a full disclosure and review of Stringer’s Compromise.

“It’s  important that the commission to hear the modifications that the borough president recommended,” said City Planning Commission Chair Amanda M. Burden.