While CEOs for Cities promotes university-community partnerships, including those that involve real estate, Columbia University is coming under fire for its plans to add 17 acres to its West Harlem campus over the next 23 years. The university promises the expansion will produce thousands of new jobs and new vitality, but some (but by no means all) in the community worry about displacement of poor people and increases in land values. Small business owners in the neighborhood worry that the university will use powers of eminent domain to remove them.

The university is creating a $20 million affordable housing fund to ward off some of the criticism.

The final decision whether to rezone the land will be made by NY City Council in January .

More on the plan here and here.

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