Planning Principles

• The Community Task Force on NYU Development created a set of principles that NYU has agreed will guide its future development.

  Establish criteria for development within the existing NYU footprint in the University’s core location, and the surrounding neighborhoods that would prioritize.

  — Identifying opportunities to decentralize facilities and actively pursuing these opportunities;

  — Contextual development that is sensitive to building heights, densities, and materials;

  — Reuse before new development.

  — Considering mixed-use facilities that complement Manhattan’s mixed neighborhoods, particularly in regard to ground-floor uses.

• Identify solutions to maximize utilization of existing assets by consulting with the community on:

  — The types of facilities that can be decentralized from the Village core and surrounding neighborhoods and cultivating locations outside these areas;

  — Preferences for appropriate places for vertical additions;

  — Encouraging programmatic and scheduling efficiencies; and

  — Opening new and reenvisioning existing recreational spaces to better serve both the student population as well as the community at large.

• Make thoughtful urban and architectural design a priority by:

  — Respecting the limitations of the urban environment, including the impact on New York City’s infrastructure;

  — Improving the quality of open spaces; and

  — Actively soliciting, utilizing, and implementing input from the community in the design process.

• Support community sustainability by:

  — Preserving existing diverse social and economic character through the support of community efforts to sustain affordable housing and local retail;

  — Exploring the utilization of ground floors of buildings for community-oriented uses such as local retail, gallery spaces for local artists, nonprofit users and other providers of community services; and

  — Generating a tenant relocation policy for legal, residential tenants, in the event that construction or conversion necessitates the relocation of tenants.

• Respect for the community’s existing qualities of life including, but not limited to:

  — Taking measures to mitigate effects of construction such as noise, dust, work hours; sound mitigation for mechanical equipment; and construction staging;

  — Reaching out early and often for community consultation related to major construction;

  — Creating a Web site for ongoing constructions; and

  — Committing to a community-oriented public process for reviewing NYU’s proposed projects and developments.