New York University’s entire $6 billion expansion plan got a green light from an appellate court Tuesday after a panel of judges overturned a lower court ruling that had blocked more than half the plan.
The Appellate Division in Manhattan ruled that three tiny strips of land that have been used as park space and maintained by the Parks Department for decades are not really parks and can be used for the project without first getting state approval.
In January, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Donna Mills ruled that NYU could not build on those parcels and only the state legislature can give up parkland for private use.
The decision effectively chopped NYU’s expansion plan in half. Instead of building 1.9 million square feet of new space over 20 years, the university was limited to creating 980,000 square feet.
NYU and the Bloomberg administration had argued that the legislature’s approval was not necessary because the “park” parcels had never been dedicated as such.
The appellate judges conceded that the city has allowed the land to be used for “park like purposes” for decades. Some of the land became community gardens. Another strip was a dog run.
However, the judges said, “such use was not exclusive” and they noted that one parcel has long been a “pedestrian thoroughfare.”
They said the fact that the Parks Department maintained the parcels “was understood to be temporary and provisional” and finally they noted, the city has “refused various requests to have the (land)…rededicated as parkland.”
“In determining whether a parcel has become a park by implication, a court should consider the owner’s acts and declarations and the circumstances surround the use of the land,” the judges said.
NYU spokesman John Beckman said university officials are “very pleased by today’s unanimous decision…The need for additional academic space is clear and … it is now also clear that the University has the legal right to proceed with this project.”
Linda Gross, a spokeswoman for 20 Greenwich Village neighbors who oppose plan, said they will try to appeal to the state’s highest court.
Area residents, such as actor Matthew Broderick, who wish to block the construction argue the project would destroy the character of the neighborhood.
