Submitted by Raz, Oct 3, 2007 16:08

As someone who lived in Boston as Harvard finished its property acquisition process in Allston, across the Charles River from its main campus, I have to point out one important issue I take with your editorial piece.

The fact that Harvard owned those properties - many for decades - meant that a lot of very well-situated Boston land sat vacant, or at least very underutilized for many years. These lots could have been used for affordable housing (almost as big a problem in Boston as NYC) or business development (more of a problem in Boston than NYC), but instead lied dormant waiting for Harvard's acquisition process to reach completion. Many people who knew of Harvard's ongoing acquistion of properties in Allston pushed Harvard to do something with those lots, but with mixed-to-low levels of success. Imagine if Columbia had actually used this strategy in Morningside Heights!! What would NYC's affordable housing advocates (myself included) have been yelling if Columbia had slowly purchased space as it became vacant or available due to underutilization in Morningside Heights 20 years ago, and let it sit while NYC's housing affordability crisis grew to its current state?

It seems to me that the problem with the Columbia expansion plan is not the process through which they intend to acquire the property, but how they say they will deal with the existing tenants. Wouldn't you say it's a good thing that those current tenants have been able to live and operate businesses where they have for the last 30 years? What we need to pay attention to is how Columbia will provide for those residents and businesses that are threatened for displacement through the plan. I think most of the City agencies involved in the process have -rightfully so- reached the same conclusion.

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