City Council approves Columbia rezoning

The City Council voted 35 to 5 to rezone a 35-acre section of Harlem,
clearing the way for Columbia University’s $7 billion expansion. The
vote to rezone the area from light industrial to mixed-use came a month
earlier than expected. Columbia plans to expand onto 17 of the rezoned
acres, bounded by Broadway, Riverside Drive, West 129th Street and West
133rd Street. “The university’s expansion is critical,” Deputy Mayor
Daniel Doctoroff said, “because the success of this city in the future
will be a function of us having a diversified economy, and having
science and technology as a key component of that diversity.”