Commission modifies CB9 and Columbia plans

Commission signs off on Columbia’s eminent domain option despite vocal opposition. On November 26, 2007, the Planning Commission modified and approved both Columbia University’s campus expansion plan and Community Board 9’s 197-a plan. The two plans must now go before the City Council for their review.

Columbia’s plan called for rezoning 35 acres of Manhattanville, a section of West Harlem primarily zoned for manufacturing, to facilitate construction of a 17-acre academic mixed-use development roughly bounded … <Read More>


Maritime school to move to Governors Island

New York Harbor School will occupy former Army barracks. Landmarks voted to approve the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation’s plan to move New York Harbor School, a Brooklyn-based public high school with a strong maritime focus, into a former military barracks building located in the Governors Island Historic District.

GIPEC is a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation created to develop civic spaces on Governors Island after the federal government handed control of … <Read More>


Commission hears Columbia’s and CB 9’s plans

Columbia University proposes northward expansion; CB 9 seeks industrial jobs and affordable housing. On October 3, 2007, the Planning Commission held a public hearing on Columbia University’s and Manhattan Community Board 9’s competing plans for the future of West Harlem.

Under Columbia’s plan, the City would rezone 35 acres of Manhattanville, a section of West Harlem currently zoned primarily for manufacturing, and create a Special Manhattanville Mixed-Use District stretching from West 125th to West 135th … <Read More>


ESDC unveils vision for Moynihan Station

ESDC plans to convert the James A. Farley Post Office complex into Moynihan Station West. Photo: Regional Plan Association.

Plan includes multiple development projects. On October 23, 2007, the Empire State Development Corporation released its draft environmental scope document for the Moynihan Station project. The project, first proposed by Senator Patrick Moynihan 15 years ago, would create a new train station within the historic James A. Farley Post Office complex, renovate the current Penn Station, … <Read More>


Private business’s plan challenges Columbia U.’s proposal

Manhattanville business filed a private rezoning opposing Columbia University’s plan to take its lots by eminent domain. Four rezoning applications filed by Tuck-It-Away Storage, a Manhattanville ministorage company, started the public review process after the Planning Commission certified the applications as complete on July 23, 2007, and sent each to Community Board 9 for comment.

The plan seeks to rezone five lots scattered throughout Manhattanville that currently contain ministorage facilities run by Tuck-It- Away Storage. … <Read More>


Federal court challenge to Atlantic Yards dismissed

Residents failed to show that the project offered no public benefit. Brooklyn residents sued in federal court, challenging the state’s plan to use eminent domain to take their property as part of the Atlantic Yards project. The residents claimed that the project failed to meet a public purpose, and that the state was taking private property solely for the private benefit of Forest City Ratner Companies, the project’s developer.

Defendants, including the Empire State Development … <Read More>