Can urban university expansion and sustainable development co-exist? A case study in progress on Columbia University.

• Author: Hirokawa, Keith H.
• Position: Country overview

Introduction A. General Sustainability Measures B. Sustainability and University Expansion: The Developing Columbia University Experience I. Sustainability, Urban Areas, and Sustainable Development in Context A. Towards Defining Sustainability B. Urban Sustainability II. The Sustainability Roles of the Institution of Higher Learning A. Columbia as a Sustainable Educational Institution 1. Sustainability Curriculum 2. Green Campus: Learning in a Sustainable Environment 3. The Expansion Project: Modernization of Construction B. A Modern Campus--Bigger is Better? III. Localizing Sustainability: Identity in Sustainable Communities and the Dilemma of Urban Expansions A. Public Participation and Sustainability 1. Do Universities, and Columbia in Particular, Have a Special Obligation to Pursue Meaningful Community Relationships? 2. Two Plans for Columbia's Expansion 3. Public Participation Through a Community Benefits Agreement 4. Public Engagement and the Use of Eminent Domain B. Displacement and Gentrification Conclusion INTRODUCTION

The notion that our resource decisions should account for the needs of today without crippling future generations in their ability to make their own resource decisions (1) has captured models of corporate responsibility, land use planning, architecture, and even market assessments. Yet sustainability is not limited to environmental quality and natural resources. The concept of sugtainability and the approach that it embodies extends throughout our social and economic institutions and applies to, among other things, housing and transportation policies, agricultural practices and food production, public health and medicine, national and international governance, and education. Sustainability is becoming a critical measure of assessment for government, corporate, and business decision making.

1. General Sustainability Measures

   The reason that sustainability has become so popular is undoubtedly related to the breadth of its governing principles. Sustainability is reflected, among other things, by the inclusiveness that can result from open and engaged public dialogue, in its resoluteness in seeking an equitable distribution of the benefits of resource use, and through the pluralism that follows the process of reconciling otherwise competing goals and perspectives. Sustainability is immediate and generational, consumptive and conservationist, and local and global. It strikes a chord of key quality of life factors in the public arena, and optimal long-term viable business considerations for the private sector.

   The application of sustainability is no simple task. (2) The variability in what constitutes sustainability for different projects (e.g., geothermal power, subdivision, or timber sale), in different regions (depending on climate, population, and character), and in different settings (rural, suburban, or urban), appears to undermine the likelihood of identifying any universally applicable principles or standardization in application. Moreover, the notion that the traditionally competitive goals of economy, environment, housing, food, and population can be reconciled raises suspicions about the practicability of pursuing sustainable policies and projects. (3) Although such suspicions deserve consideration, it is important to note that sustainability is best understood as a process and a framework that acquires its meaning in particular contexts.

2. Sustainability and University Expansion: The Developing Columbia University Experience

   This Article employs sustainability as a framework to analyze the recent physical expansion plans of Columbia University for the purpose of illustrating the complexities that arise in urban development and higher education practices, as well as the problems of trying to simultaneously implement both. In this context, land-use planning and regulatory agencies, as well as courts, have traditionally provided a high level of deference and leniency in the application of land-use laws and regulations when it comes to siting and expansion issues for educational institutions. The issues that surround these situations generally include the siting of schools and related facilities (such as athletic fields) in zoning districts where such uses may not be permitted, and the reconciling of specific regulations such as historic district reviews, dimensional requirements, and environmental considerations. Institutions of higher education can further complicate matters, as available land for expansion is often a physical and political challenge, and the institutional business model behind expansion plans can overshadow the educational purposes that the expansion is intended to serve. Even more complex are expansions of educational institutions in urban areas, where the acquisition of new land can result in a "university creep" into neighborhoods, and where the scale of the proposed development may not be in keeping with past and present community character.

   Columbia University, in New York City, "the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York," (4) is a private, non-sectarian university that has been operating in the borough of Manhattan since 1754. (5) Over time, the University's growth in prestige and student enrollment resulted in campus expansions and relocations, including, for example, a move uptown in the late 1890s into the Momingside Heights neighborhood, which was described as an "urban academic village." (6) Steady enrollment increases in the 1950s led to new buildings in the 1960s to house five different schools. (7) Expansion resumed in the 1980s and throughout the 1990s. (8)

   Columbia first announced its most recent proposed expansion in 2003. The Public Authorities Control Board of the State of New York gave the plans a "green light" in May 2009. (9) The University plans to expand its thirty-six-acre campus by building an additional 6.8 million square feet of space for classrooms, research facilities, administration, housing, and parking, and intends to redevelop seventeen acres from West 125th to West 133rd streets, in a neighborhood called Manhattanville. (10) The expansion plan, estimated to cost approximately $6.3 billion, is scheduled to take place in two phases, with Phase One scheduled for completion by 2015 and Phase Two scheduled for completion by 2030. (11) The first phase of construction will include the Jerome L. Greene science center, new homes for the Columbia Business School, the School of International and Public Affairs, and the School of the Arts, as well as a permanent site for the newly opened Columbia-assisted public secondary school for math, science, and engineering. (12)

   The expansion proposal began in the Planning and Project Coordination ("PPC") unit of the Government and Community Affairs Department of Columbia University. The PPC

   provides analysis, coordination and communication associated with physical planning, land-use development, and zoning policy. The unit provides an important link between the community, the University and public officials, not only as it relates to the Manhattanville Campus Expansion Plan, but with regard to all University-initiated "bricks and mortar" projects. In addition, the staff monitors projects or proposals generated by government agencies and outside developers which may affect the upper Manhattan communities that surround University campuses. (13) While Columbia University has hailed the project as a form of smart growth that will both exhibit sustainable practices (14) and generate thousands of jobs, keeping Manhattan in the center of world thought leadership, (15) others have criticized both the scale of the University's plans and the manner in which the property for the project has been acquired. (16) Questions surrounding the process of meaningful public participation, the use of eminent domain to acquire certain needed parcels, (17) and the general "good neighbor" behavior of the University must be reviewed and balanced against the University's stated commitment to bringing a "carefully considered, transparent, and predictable plan [that] will create a new kind of urban academic environment that will be woven into the fabric of the surrounding community." (18)

   This Article does not intend to suggest a "report card" on the sustainability of the Columbia University expansion project planning and approval phases. Rather, it will use the Columbia project as a case study to demonstrate the difficulty in labeling projects as sustainable or unsustainable when key stakeholders view the process and outcomes of sustainability differently. The Article points out that many of the actions taken by the University appear, on the surface, to promote concepts and principles of sustainability. At the same time, particular elements of the expansion plan, as well as the general approach exhibited by Columbia, have been criticized as failures to change the "business as usual" paradigm that underlies the very need for a shift to sustainable practices. Part II provides a fuller discussion of sustainability, highlighting key considerations of a sustainability framework particularly in an urban development context. Part III discusses generally the involvement of higher education institutions with sustainability: it explores areas where the Columbia University expansion may and may not be sustainable from a physical environmental perspective, still recognizing that stakeholder perspectives may differ. Part IV focuses on another key component of sustainable urban development projects: public participation, including accountability and transparency leading to issues of local identity. This section discusses, among other things, the role of public participation in the development of the community benefits agreement for the project, as well as public participation in the decision to use eminent domain to assemble needed parcels for the expansion. An update on the current eminent domain...