Think about that $76 million for a moment. That’s equivalent to Yankee Stadium’s $800,000 annual “community” pledge to Bronx elected officials — for 95 years. We’ll have to wait to see the language of the agreement, of course, but unless the promised body overseeing this thing is a paragon of democracy, what we have here is essentially a long-term purchase of elected officials’ compliance, long after Borough President Scott Stringer, Councilmember Robert Jackson and other parties to this deal will have been term-limited out of office.

While Columbia deserves ample credit for a few things — for its persistent if incomplete efforts to keep the surrounding community informed about its plans, for its commitment of $30 million for a school and $20 million for an affordable housing fund, and for being willing to sit down to negotiate community benefits in the first place — university officials have been anything but encouraging of serious community participation. Yes, Columbia, some of the local demands were unreasonable, intransigent, contradictory, and polarizing. Certain groups made clear they intended to stop Columbia’s expansion altogether. That’s the nature of democratic debate, as Columbia President and First Amendment specialist Lee Bollinger knows very well. Dissent and resistance are not a reason to steamroller local input; on the contrary, they demand meaningful engagement. Alas, nothing so far suggests the new body to oversee the funds will be any more inclusive.

Then there’s the collateral damage we’re already seeing, to the very idea of community benefits agreements. Check out the comments in response to Matthew Schuerman’s article in the Observer this week (his last, as Schuerman moves to WNYC radio). Virtually every one characterizes the deal as a shakedown of near-criminal proportions. Even a lonely commenter who gives the agreement benefit of the doubt expresses a fear that “some of the community activists (or their backers) will end up making out like bandits.”

Beyond the racially charged imagery of this emerging narrative, which is echoed in so many accounts of the community benefits negotiations, is a larger sense that major developers have no responsibilities to the communities they occupy, which are in fact lucky to have them there. But some other cities don’t look at it that way. After Boston went through similar agonies over hospital and university expansions in the 1980s, the city redevelopment agency there developed a formal process for community participation in planning institutional expansions — and plans must always include some clearly delineated community benefits. Until the mayor and Department of City Planning take the leadership to develop something like that, pushing community benefits from a fringe demand (thus easily manipulable to bad ends) to a tenet of city planning, we’re going to be a poorer city, in which institutions that should be investing in building strong community ties instead sow mountains of distrust, then have to spend millions buying elected officials’ support.

We’ll get you the details as soon as we have them. But based on earlier reports, we can be fairly sure of two things: the deal will include substantial funds for housing, and it represents the interests of the elected officials whose staffs negotiated it — not the community in whose name it was executed. As a certain resident of Yankee Stadium used to say, “It’s deja vu all over again.”

For further enlightenment, check out Good Jobs New York’s excellent report on Yankee Stadium, which describes how the Yankees hired longtime political operative Stanley Schlein to broker a “community benefits agreement” with the City Council — giving Bronx members $800,000 a year in cash to spend — in order to win the Council’s support for the stadium plan. The community had nothing to do with it.

Columbia can’t do any worse. Or can it?

Crains reports that two more members of the West Harlem Local Development Corporation have resigned as negotiations with Columbia for community benefits — including a housing fund — hurtle forward. As we’ve noted, three other members who resigned last week reported that community representatives had been excluded from negotiations with the university.

In other news, we’re still waiting to hear about the Sprayregen Swap, back on the table since Thursday…

You’ll recall that in late November, the City Planning Commission approved the Community Board 9’s 197-a plan for the area, but without, well, the heart of it all: recommendations for how to incorporate Columbia University’s planned expansion into the fabric of Manhattanville’s existing buildings, preserving small businesses and the industrial activity amid a rising new campus.

At a Wednesday morning hearing, the Council’s subcommittees on Zoning and Franchises and Planning, Dispositions & Concessions came face to face with two starkly different visions for Manhattanville: Community Board 9’s 197-a plan and Columbia University’s own proposal to build a self-contained academic campus on 17 square blocks.

To judge from the comments of the councilmembers, they were paying careful attention to some of the community board’s key recommendations rejected by City Planning — above all, its call to prohibit the use of eminent domain to acquire property for development in Manhattanvillle.

Zoning & Franchises Committee Chair Tony Avella of Queens set the tone following the presentation of Columbia President Lee Bollinger and colleagues. Avella warned them that he would not support using government muscle to aid private entities in securing property. “I don’t think I’ve heard anything that’s changed my mind about that issue or the way I’ll vote on it,” said Avella. Fellow Queens Councilmember Melinda Katz followed in turn, rebuking Columbia officials for dodging hard questions about how they would aquire property in West Harlem by alluding to community benefits they planned to deliver, which are beyond the scope of the plans the council is to vote on.

With a boost from a raucous array of activists from Coalition to Preserve Community and other West Harlem groups, other councilmembers went even further to take shots at the university. “Don’t trust Columbia!” Councilmember Charles Barron shouted at the crowd. “Be vigilant in this process! Harlem has been gentrified and Harlem is in trouble.”

Councilmember Larry Seabrook followed by pointing out that 51 percent of black men in New York City are unemployed, and saying that the promise of union construction on Columbia buildings is not enough to ensure that black men are included in the workforce. Looking at the Columbia table, he challenged those testifying not to stick to the F.B.I. — “Family, Brother, and In-Law” — hiring model when moving forward with development in West Harlem.

Columbia official Robert Kasdin responded that the university has a long-standing practice of hiring at least 40 percent minorities, women, and locals on its construction projects.

And West Harlem Councilmember Robert Jackson, whose deal with Borough President Scott Stringer doomed Community Board 9’s prospects for reshaping Columbia’s plans? He ingratiated himself to Community Board 9’s Pat Jones, one of the architects of the 197-a plan: “I’ve told Pat that she is a hero.”

Councilmember Robert Jackson, who sits on Avella’s committee, can expect to take some heat at the hearing from constituents over his role in the West Harlem Local Development Corporation, which Community Board 9 created as a vehicle for residents and business owners to negotiate a community benefits agreement but which Jackson, Rep. Charles Rangel and other West Harlem elected officials insisted on having their own representatives join.

Last week, three LDC members resigned, complaining that they were effectively locked out of community benefits negotiations controlled by the elected officials’ representatives.

Jackson was a key supporter of Borough President Scott Stringer’s agreement with Columbia, which paved the way for the university expansion’s approval and doomed prospects for Community Board 9’s own plan for the zone.

Wednesday, December 12 at 10 a.m.
City Hall Chamber