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December 5, 2006
HOW TO MEDIATE MANHATTANVILLE: A NEW NEGOTIATING PARTNER IS BORN
A different kind of local body, created to help shape Columbia University’s development plan, could become a “community benefits” trendsetter.
City Limits.org
By Jimmy Vielkind
The West Harlem Local Development Corporation, is unique. It is not directly involved in building affordable housing or creating jobs, but rather with negotiating and enforcing a community benefits agreement with Columbia University as the school pushes to build a new campus on a 17-acre site just north of 125th Street. In the past few years, community benefits agreements have emerged as vital to large development projects in New York, and this LDC was formed in an attempt to answer the question of precisely who in a given community should sit across the negotiating table.
Atlantic Yards Report follows up on the City Limits article in a post which compares the West Harlem effort to Ratner's CBA.
The city seems to be learning that community groups in such negotiations need some juice. City Limits reports:
City officials have encouraged the dialogue. The New York City Economic Development Corporation provided $350,000 and a professional mediator, John Bickerman, to facilitate negotiations. There is no formal place in current review processes for a community benefits agreement, and Mayor Bloomberg has not consistently supported such agreements.
There was no such formal and financial backing for the Atlantic Yards CBA. Indeed, the city is continuing to rethink the CBA concept. So much for the model that supporters proclaim.
Posted by lumi at December 5, 2006 8:01 AM