The land-use committee of Community Board 7 expressed many concerns last April about the planned major redevelopment by Fordham University of its Lincoln Center campus.

Last week, it unanimously approved a resolution disapproving the university's proposed master plan for the site but stating that it would "strongly consider" approval of a revised plan that "(a) limited total floor area on the site to 2,500,000 square feet; (b) substantially reduced the height of the Amsterdam Avenue buildings; (c) substantially reduced the height of the Columbus Avenue buildings and reconfigured those buildings so as not to create monolithic full block-long facades; (d) provided for mitigation of the probable effects on local schools of the construction of several hundred private residential units; and (e) provided for a second tier review and approval by the Community Board and the City Planning Commission of the actual design of buildings on the site."

The resolution will be voted on by the full board January 21. Its recommendations are not binding but are influential.

The university wants to add about 2,350,000 square feet of space to its existing campus on the "superblock" bounded by Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues and 60th and 62nd Streets, directly south of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Sidney Goldfisher MD, The president of the Alfred residential condominium tower at 161 West 61st Street, which is very close to the site, submitted an 8-page letter for the board in opposition to approval of the master plan stating that "the basic concept behind the master plan and its current execution are totally inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the basic principles upon which the campus was created and therefore is fundamentally flawed." "The wall of skyscrapers and high rises that Fordham hopes to build on West 62nd Street will break forever the link between the Collegiate center and the Center for the Performing Arts," he letter continued.

The letter also noted that many citizens believed that the city's transfer to Fordham of the two-square-block site was "a gift from the government to a religious institution and therefore violated the constitutional separation of church and state," adding that the city "paid approximately $16.50 a square foot for the land and sold it to Fordham for $6.50 square foot....The university's contemptuous attitude towards the community was expressed at its first meeting in the winter of 2005....That meeting began with a disingenuous statement by Fordham's counsel that Fordham had purchased the land in the open market and that, 'it is our land and we will build what we want, where want and when we want.'"

His letter suggested that "an ethical and workable compromise may yet be attained," but would require "that the destruction of working class homes and the forced removal of more than a thousand families from their homes be memorialized by new educational or community facilities and not by two 60 stories luxury condominiums."

"The requirements," the letter continued, "that 65 percent of the campus remain open space and that building be more than 20 stories is reasonable and will provide for sufficient space for realistic expansion....massive dormitories do not belong in Lincoln Center....The proposed campus will have much more in common with a Trump or Extell development than a collegiate center."

His letter also attacked the retention of the site's "podium that separates the campus from the community" and its lack of provision or concern for the black of elementary and middle school facilities," and "egregious environmental insults including destruction of St. Peter's garden and two extraordinary stands of white birch trees."