Columbia University’s simmering tension with Harlem residents over its plan to build a new, 17-acre campus in Manhattanville came to a boil last week when a rowdy, standing-room-only crowd of roughly 400 people armed with signs and maracas packed into a hearing on the school’s 197-C development plan, developed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM). This reaction made yesterday’s rejection of the plan by the local Community Board an inevitability.
Columbia’s 197-C plan, named for a clause in New York City’s charter that requires potential developers to seek zoning approval through a land-use review, intends to open 94,000 square feet of public space—mainly in the form of a park along 12th Avenue—while simultaneously adding 6.8 million square feet of new academic buildings at a site one-quarter mile north of its existing campus.
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