The first conflict at yesterday’s New York City Planning Commission hearing on Columbia University’s 17-acre Manhattanville expansion plan, a scheme designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), was not over a building but a chair.

“Twelve urban planners, and none of them can plan a seating arrangement,” said Harlem resident Nellie Hester Bailey as she took a seat reserved for Columbia staff in the Commission’s cramped 50-seat auditorium. A two-hour meeting ensued, during which community members, who are upset about the university’s plan to displace 5,000 residents and use eminent domain in aid of building a new campus, held up placards that read “Harlem Is Not For Sale” and chanted choruses of “We Shall Not Be Moved.” And at the end of the hearing, the Commission’s vote on two dueling proposals for Manhattanville—one from Columbia and an alternative from the local Community Board, which encourages economic development without raising the specter of eminent domain—ended in a draw. But this vote does not necessarily represent a stalemate and Columbia looks set to get most of what it wants.