No Land Grab

To CPC Members and Others Interested: 8/24/08

EMINENT DOMAIN HEARING SEPT. 2 AND SEPT. 4 (COME THE EVENING OF THE 2ND IF YOU CAN) AND SUMMER UPDATE:

The Empire State Development Corporation will hold a hearing which is supposedly part of the process to help decide whether the state will support the use of eminent domain for the Columbia expansion. It will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 2 and Thursday September 4 (exact times and signup procedure is below), at Aaron Davis Hall at City College (135th Street and Convent Ave.), just east of Amsterdam Ave. Many Coalition to Preserve Community members testified at the initial meeting in July and the undemocratic practices of the ESDC became immediately evident when its chairperson called for the vote from the members on the eminent domain issue. The chair did not even make the perfunctory gesture of asking if there were any votes in opposition or abstentions. It was only when a CPC member, loudly because his hand went unrecognized, pointed out this basic violation of Roberts R ules of Order, that the chair then went back and completed the proper voting procedure. Even before the vote was taken on whether the eminent domain process would move forward, ESDC officials had already picked hearing dates in September!

State Senator Bill Perkins challenged ESDC for failing to provide him and the public with the current state documents which should have been available. Councilman Robert Jackson’s representative neither raised nor supported any issue that had been brought up by community members or Perkins, instead focusing on a lame request that the hearing be held in September. (It was clear to those present that Jackson had no interest in challenging eminent domain abuse itself – the Sept. 2 date is apparently fine with him--it would give him and his staff enough time to come back from the Democratic National Convention. The organizing challenge of getting the public to a hearing the day after the Labor Day holiday was of no concern to the Councilman. This process is so clearly rigged in favor of Columbia that Governor David Paterson needs to step in personally, come to Harlem’s defense, and show political integrity by maintaining consistency with his own formerly critical position on eminent domain.

We regret to report that Community Board 9 (CB 9) did not have a single representative at the initial ESDC meeting to reiterate the Board's and the community's opposition to Eminent Domain. There are 50 members on the board. Couldn’t someone come and represent it? We must also report that CB 9 did not have anyone present at the judge’s hearing on the environmental lawsuit (brought by Tuckitaway and covering many essential issues raised in CB 9’s resolution against the bathtub construction and other environmental issues raised by CB 9 in its 197 A plan). Where is CB 9 when the community needs them? Where is our political representation? And for that matter, why was the West Harlem Local Development Corp (WHLDC) not present and representing the community’s interests? The WHLDC needs to stand up against eminent domain earnestly in public. We hope to see CB 9 and the LDC members out in force at the ESDC hearing and standing up and speaking out.

Columbia is acting like it has ESDC approval already. Just look at what it is already doing on Broadway’s west side near 130th Street – limiting traffic flow (at least two accidents have occurred already). Has anyone tried to get gas at the Shell Station or a car repair at Papi’s there? Columbia continues its blight creation, and its attack on employment it deems not consistent with the new world it wants to create at our expense.

Columbia’s public relations gang together with Councilman Jackson’s office issued a joint press release over a year ago making claims CU would not use eminent domain against expansion properties that had residential tenants. Our coalition immediately disputed this claim, and last month, sure enough, Columbia had changed its tune. Instead of CU President Bollinger’s and Jackson’s assertion that eminent domain would never be used against residents, in the papers before the ESDC, that tune had cha nged. Now CU has reneged on its promise and says it will only forgo eminent domain for an undetermined amount of time (approximately 10 years – or until they need the land where residents are housed).

Columbia has broken its promise not to use eminent domain against residents after having used it during the government approval process to soften outrage over the use of eminent domain against longtime residents, some of whom were in the process of becoming owners of their apartments. This PR strategy allowed Columbia and the City Council to make the owners easier targets for eminent domain - as if the public is so stupid it does not understand the way eminent domain (and placement of environmentally unsafe facilities) are being used in low-income and minority communities across the country. It was a cynical attempt to divide and conquer but the unity that exists between owners, businesses facing eviction, and residents in and out of the expansion area, is strong. We suspect that Columbia’s inevitable contingency plans to mitigate the affect of C2 the arrests of community members (yes, we will be in front of the bulldozers) must be going forward in the bowels of Low Library, and in consultation with the trustees’ political friends.

Of course, the residents in the immediate expansion area are already being affected by the threat of forced displacement, as are all tenants in the surrounding area and in greater Harlem as well. And, finally, regarding those property owners facing the theft of their properties: They have been dealing with this threat over the past five years, and are now confronting the endgame abuse. The businesses and owners who have been driven out already, and those who are maintaining a courageous (and costly) resistance, have the support of Harlem residents and organized groups like the CPC. Despite Columbia’s vicious underhanded efforts to demean these owners and harass them into selling out, the largest one and others are still hanging tough. Nick Spreyregen of Tuckitaway, declared years ago that he would fight this to the Supreme Court. Those owners who held out f or a long time but were finally squeezed and pressured into selling out, tip their hats to the battle Nick is waging because they would have been right there if they had the resources. He is doing it to save his family businesses and for all Harlem residents, businesses, and workers as well. As we see more and more businesses and residents being forced out from re-zonings (yeah the Record Shack has joined Bobby’s Happy House) and the gentrification process, we know that we cannot go quietly. And we will not. We need you at this hearing. So come on out.

Coalition to Preserve Community members have been active this summer, doing flyering at subway stops against the biotech lab #3’s and the bathtub, and doing other supportive actions for neighborhood preservation, but it is now time for everyone to step into high gear and turn out at this hearing and speak against the use of eminent domain.

Below are talking points to be made at the hearing and below that is the official ESDC notice of where the hearing will take place and speaking rules.

EMINENT DOMAIN TALKING POINTS

EMINENT DOMAIN SHOULD NOT BE INVOKED ON BEHALF OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S PROPOSED EXPANSIO N FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS:

(1) THE COMMUNITY UNEQUIVOCALLY OPPOSES IT
At every forum of the West Harlem Local Development Corporation and at every public hearing in the ULURP process, the community has been united in opposing the use of Eminent Domain as a first principle and most community members have demanded that the University take it off the table as a precondition for any negotiations with Columbia. The community seeks an integrated community, where private owners who have provided good-paying jobs to community workers can stay in their historic locations. Condemnation would create a “company town” solely f or Columbia University’s use and enjoyment. Columbia’s “all of nothing” demand is unnecessary to their expansion, but not to their “fire-sale” land grab, and destructive of the neighborhood.

(2) THIS PROJECT IS NOT “CIVIC” NOR “FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD”
This proposed project would transfer private property to another private entity, which will use the property in public/private biotech business projects akin to Stanford University’s research park (a development Columbia has sought to emulate since the 1960s). This is not an 9 Ceducational” or “-“civic” use, despite the title of this hearing, but an income-producing use by a not-for profit entity which will not even pay real–estate taxes.

(3) ANY “BLIGHT” IN THE EXPANSION AREA HAS BEEN CREATED BY THE PROPOSED BENEFICIARY OF EMINENT DOMAIN
If it is true, as Columbia has repeatedly claimed, that the University owns 70-80% of the property in Manhattanville (a claim put into question by the list of properties which it seeks to have the ESDC condemn), any ill-maintained and unoccupied property has been the result of the University’s own deliberate actions. It should not benefit from those actions. Available industrial real estate is at a severe shortage in the City. Any vacant properties could have been rented immediately if maintained and truly offered for occupancy. The University has used the threat of condemnation, based on its own creation of blight, to threaten and intimidate landowners into selling their properties, saying “sell to use now or deal with the State later.” Columbia has also emptied the area of commercial tenants like Reality House and the mechanics at 3150 Broadway and is in the process of removing long-time residential tenants and potential owners.

(4) THE CONDEMNATION PROCESS HAS BEEN CORRUPT AND FULL OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The University has paid at least $300,000 to the ESDC to move the condemnation process forward (a payment unacknowledged by the University until an FOIL request uncovered it) while denying its role in the Eminent Domain process. There is an irresolvable conflict of interest in the condemnation process because the consultant AKRF was hired by the University to perform its Environmental Impact Statement for the ULURP process and at the same time created the “blight study” being relied upon by the ESDC as a basis for Eminent Domain. That conflict has not been resolved by the newly minted “blight study” by another consultant which uniformly mimics the AKRF study. Moreover, AKRF also drafted responses for the City Planning Commission in response to points brought up by Community Board 9 critiquing the “Draft Scope of Work” during the ULURP process. Thus it is seeks to serve three masters: the University, the City, and the State. That is not possible.

(5) THE USE OF EMINENT DOMAIN AT THIS STAGE IS PREMATURE
Columbia has never demonstrated its need for the entire proposed expansion area. We don’t have even one set of completed plans for a building. The safety and economic-feasibility of its proposed “bathtub” basement has never been demonstrated and has served primarily as a rationale for the attempted acquisition of the entire footprint. Columbia has made no commitment to building the bathtub or developing the proposed expansion area within any designated time period. The footprint may sit fallow for years as the University struggles to raise funds in a depressed economy. Present businesses are already operating, paying wages to workers and taxes to the City.

(6) EMINENT DOMAIN IS UNDEMOCRATIC AND UN-AMERICAN
Property to be acquired by private developers like Columbia University should be bought through the market at market prices. Owners uninterested in selling should not be compelled to sell by the State.

COME OUT AND TESTIFY AGAINST THE USE OF EMINENT DOMAIN IN MANHATTANVILLE. WHY SHOULD WEST HARLEM BE HANDED OVER TO COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY WITH A STATE SPONSORED EVICTION? THE PEOPLE, NOT PRIVATE DEVELOPERS AND ELITIST INSTITUTIONS, MUST HAVE INFLUENCE AND MUST BE HEARD.

THE TIMES OF THE HEARING (IT'S IN FOUR PARTS) AND HOW TO SIGN UP TO SPEAK ARE IN THE NOTICE BELOW AND TALKING POINTS TO RAISE ARE AT PASTED IN ABOVE. TRY TO COME TUESDAY NIGHT IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE – 5:30 to 9:00PM.

LEGAL NOTICE
NEW YORK STATE URBAN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION D/B/A
EMPIRE STATE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING TO BE HELD
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2008 AND CONTINUED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2008, PURSUANT TO SECTIONS 6 AND 16 OF THE NEW YORK STATE URBAN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ACT AND ARTICLE 2 OF THE NEW YORK STATE EMINENT DOMAIN PROCEDURE LAW IN CONNECTION WITH THE PROPOSED COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATIONAL MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT LAND USE IMPROVEMENT AND CIVIC PROJECT

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a public hearing, open to all persons, will be held at the Aaron Davis Hall of the City University of New York, West 135"' Street at Convent Avenue, New York, New York 10031, from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. and from 5:30 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 and continued on Thursday, September 4, 2008, from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. and from 5:30 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. by the New York Sta te Urban Development Corporation d/b/a Empire State Development Corporation ("ESDC") Pursuant to Sections 6 and 16 of the New York State Urban Development Corporation Act (Chapter 174, Section 1, Laws of 1968, as amended; the "UDC Act") and Article 2 of the New York State Eminent Domain Procedure Law ("EDPL") to consider: (a) the General Project Plan (the "General Project Plan") for the proposed Columbia University Educational Mixed-Use Development Land Use Improvement and Civic Project (the "Project"); (b) the proposed acquisition by ESDC, by condemnation or voluntary transfer, of certain property located within the Project Site (described below) in furtherance of the Project; and (c) the essential terms of proposed conveyances of property so acquired by ESDC to Columbia University in furtherance of the Project.

For those who wish to speak at the hearing, speaker registration will commence 15 minutes before each session on each hearing date at the Aaron Davis Hall.

WE ARE COMMITED TO STOPPING THE DESTRUCTION OF HARLEM AND TO PRESERVING OUR HOMES, JOBS AND COMMUNITY