City Council Votes on NYU 2031 on July 17 and 25

Dogwood at the WSV Sasaki Garden (photo courtesy Hubert J. Steed, source)

CAAN2031 reports that the City Council will vote on NYU 2031 on July 17th and 25th.  The details are as follows:

July 17 at City Hall Council Chambers: Land Use Committee. The Zoning & Franchises subcommittee is meeting at 9:30, and the Land Use committee meeting starts at 10am. A committee-level vote on NYU 2031 is expected. Public may attend, but this is not a hearing so the public will most likely not be permitted to speak.

July 25 at City Hall Council Chambers: City Council Stated Meeting. The meeting begins at 1:30, and a final Council vote is expected on the NYU 2031 Plan. Votes at Stated Meetings are often done in groups by roll call. Again, members of the community may attend, but not speak.

Take Action

Keep up the calls, letters and emails to City Council. The Councilmembers in this area are: Councilmember Margaret Chin: 212-587-3159, Council Speaker Christine Quinn: 212-788-7210 and Councilmember Rosie Mendez: 212-677-1077. Ask all your neighbors and friends, wherever in the City they live, to contact their own Councilmember. Every letter, email, fax and phone call can make a difference. Councilmembers need to hear from their own constituents in order to realize that this is NOT a "NIMBY" issue, so please ask your friends who live elsewhere in NYC to take a moment to send a brief message to their Councilmember asking for a No on NYU 2031 and that they treasure the historic residential nature of Greenwich Village. They can easily find their Councilmember (or you can do it for them!) at: http://council.nyc.gov/html/members/members.shtml If you have time to call other Councilmembers, especially those on the Land Use Committee, please do so. For more information and phone numbers of all Councilmembers, please visit: http://www.gvshp.org/_gvshp/preservation/nyu/nyu-phone.htm.

NO on NYU 2031 Talking (Writing) Points

- Shoehorning 2 million square feet into Greenwich Village will forever change a historic residential neighborhood loved by residents as well as people throughout the world.
- Rezoning to accommodate a developer's unjustified desire for more buildings than currently allowed sets a dangerous precedent for all of NYC - zoning exists to protect against overdevelopment.
- Public Open Space is in especially short supply in our area, and should never be sold, given or allowed to be used by a private entity for their own purposes.
- NYU is a terrible steward of open space despite decades of promises and agreements. The community does a much better job of creating and maintaining open spaces that serve resident needs.
- Decades of continuous construction will severely reduce quality of life throughout the area and destroy the Village's attractiveness to visitors.
- Local businesses will not survive the downturn caused by years of construction disruption.
- The community and NYU's own faculty, the very people expected to benefit from the 2031 Plan, are standing together against NYU 2031.
- Other options for development are right nearby, already have appropriate zoning for buildings such as NYU wishes to build, and welcome NYU development.