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City Council Votes to Approve NYU Plan

Today the City Council chose to ignore thousands of New Yorkers and by far the majority of NYU faculty, staff, and workers who had called upon them to reject the plan. GVSHP had offered several alternative approaches which both the university and the City Council refused to consider.  As you have seen in previous Off the Grid posts, GVSHP had commissioned a study showing that locating new NYU facilities in the Financial District, Downtown Brooklyn, or Long Island City rather than on the proposed sites would be less expensive, more environmentally efficient, and have greater positive economic impact. We also submitted reports to the Council illustrating that other cities and universities facing similar expansion struggles chose to locate their facilities in satellite campuses or to simply spread their facilities over greater distances.

The Council’s vote today violates the public trust, would turn this neighborhood into a twenty-year construction zone, and further tip the balance of the Village’s neighborhood character to increasing dominance by NYU.

While this action is indeed a bleak statement on city government and our public land use review and approval process, this is not the end of the fight. GVSHP and our allies at NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan are jointly represented by the law firm of Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher. We will be pursuing all legal options available to us, including challenging the decision in court. We’ll keep you updated on this!

Find out more about the NYU expansion plan and the effort to stop it HERE.

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