And with a vote of 12-1, NYU's dreams of adding roughly two million square feet of new facilities to the superblocks below Washington Square Park inch ever closer to reality. Yup, the City Planning Commission voted this morning to approve NYU's slightly scaled back NYU 2031 plan. They weren't all happy about doing so, though.
Although the vote was distinctly in the school's favor, there was some public ripping on the school to be had:
Commissioner Anna Hayes Levin said she thought that NYU leaders were terrible stewards of their public space and didn't think that the school officials knew exactly what they wanted to do with all the buildings they were asking for. "We need it because we want it," was the impression Levin received from NYU. Although she thought that the proposed changes did not go far enough in reducing the sizes of NYU 2031's building plans, Levin voted yes to approve because there were already enough votes to assure approval anyway.
And so it goes. At least the City Planning Commission made sure that the plan they approved was even more toned down than the school's scaled down version—no zipper building! No underground classrooms! No temporary gym when Coles is torn down! No hotel! Shorter buildings! You can see a full list of the modifications here [PDF].
The ball is now in the City Council's court on this one—they've got 60 days to hold hearings before voting on it. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg—who, despite serious community opposition has been public about his support of the expansion—will likely be happy with this not unexpected development. The rest of us, however, now pretty much for sure have years and years of additional construction in the Village to look forward to.
