By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
INWOOD — After a fight over Columbia University's plans to expand Baker Field last week devolved into a shouting match at City Hall last week, Councilmembers Robert Jackson, Adriano Espaillat and Ydanis Rodriguez showed a more unified front at a community meeting to discuss the plans on Sunday.
State Senator Adriano Espaillat, who had aligned himself with Rodriguez in a push to have more of a say over the university's expansion plans, played peacemaker by organizing the meeting at Northeastern Academy on West 215th Street Sunday. The meeting fell just two days after Jackson hosted his own presentation discussing the same issue.
"Maybe we could have a third meeting that we could all host," Espaillat said after hundreds of residents turned up to hear Columbia University's plans for the field Sunday.
Rodriguez and Jackson fought publicly at a City Hall session last week over who would spearhead community discussions over Columbia's plans.
Jackson maintained that the most important thing was for neighbors to get answers from Columbia over the proposed construction, which would mean organizing as many public forums as possible.
"Obviously this is an important issue for Upper Manhattan," he said at the start of the meeting. "I'm happy that this meeting is occuring."
Columbia University plans to build a new 47,700 square foot field house at 218th Street and Broadway, promising a host of community amenities in exchange.
Joseph Ienuso, vice president of facilities for Columbia, said Sunday that the school would invest upwards of $3 million to overhaul the sports fields — which the school has promised to make more available for public use — in addition to spending an estimated $100 million to construct the new field house.
Among the concessions to neighbors would be greater access to the school's athletic events, scholarships for neighborhood children to participate in sports camps and a public dock at the waterfront.
Pending approval from the City Council's land-use committee in April, Ienuso said that construction of the field house would not begin until the summer months in order to reduce the amount of noise and traffic at the construction site during the school year, in an effort to help the schools across the street from the site.
While community advocates have praised Columbia's design and some of the proposed community programs, they fear that the university will renege on its promises to residents once it obtains the proper permits.
The university has previously come under fire from local community organizations, including Harlem's Community Board 9, which says the $150 million in funds that Columbia promised the neighborhood in exchange for expansion into Harlem has not been handled properly.
"We're here to create the infrastructure of accountability that has been missing for many, many years," said Gail Addiss, with the community group, Advocates for Inwood, who has been pushing to get Columbia University's promises in writing.
Elected officials and residents alike said Sunday they wanted the university to include more public programs for neighborhood youth and promise to submit any future projects at Baker Field to a public review process.
