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Syracuse University completed the demolition of a home located at 813 Comstock Ave. in August. Three years ago, SU demolished nine buildings on the 700 block of Ostrom Avenue.

The demolitions along the eastern edge of the university’s campus were a “wake-up” call to the Southeast University Hill and Westcott communities, said Samuel Gruber, the co-president of the Westcott Neighborhood Association.

“Clearly, the university has been looking at Comstock for a long time,” Gruber said.

However, a university spokesperson confirmed that there are currently no specific plans for the properties.

The university acquired 813 Comstock Ave., located directly across from the Women’s Building, in Nov. 2020. The property is the only lot owned by SU on the 800 block of Comstock Avenue. Neighboring the lot are two properties, 807 Comstock Ave. and 809 Comstock Ave., which currently stand as cleared lots.

“In the 1990s, they tore down a lot of … homes, more to develop (the Center for Science and Technology),” Gruber said. “I moved here just about that time, and there was a lot of public outcry about that expansion to the east.”

Gruber recalled SU leadership promising the community at the time that there would be no further eastward expansion of the campus, but as leadership has changed significantly since that time, the relationship between the two has also changed.

The demolition of 813 Comstock Ave. highlighted the lack of transparency surrounding SU’s plans for properties it owns to the east of campus, said Andy Leahy, a member of the Southeast University Neighborhood Association (SEUNA). He added that the lack of transparency could indicate that the university wanted to avoid any potential protest from community members.

“In the early stages, they were asked, ‘What’s your plan for the property?’ It’s a nice old house … and they said they didn’t have any plans. And then it’s demolished, and the average person didn’t see it happen until it was all over,” Leahy said. “If they were upfront about it, I think they would have had some opposition.”

SEUNA President Michael Stanton shared similar sentiments, noting that he personally contacted the university several times about its plans for the property, both when SU acquired 813 Comstock Ave. and when it demolished the home.

“It’s just kind of hard to believe that they would spend over $400,000 for a house to demolish it and then have no plans for what to do with it,” Stanton said.

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He added that because the property is currently designated for single-family homes, he’s not sure what the university would do with it, but he suspects that other vacant lots on the block could be the target of future university acquisitions.

The university would have to get approval from the Zoning Office and the Syracuse Planning Commission to change the designation of the lots, said Jake Dishaw, the director of code enforcement for the city of Syracuse, in an email to The Daily Orange.

Gruber said the university’s incremental expansion of campus will reduce the amount of pushback SU will receive from community members when compared to taking on larger construction plans in a shorter period of time.

“If you do little things here and there and make things seem inevitable. People’s memories are short and this is a transient community,” he said. “You can do a lot over a long period and SU can play the long game … It can be hard to confront that.”

David Haas, the owner of the Syracuse History Instagram and TikTok accounts, believes that there needs to be more of a conversation between the university and the community about plans for campus expansion.

“That’s why a couple of times in the past couple of years that I have posted about it to just engage others and say ‘This is going on, let’s talk about it. Let’s ask questions.’” Haas said.

Haas added that some people are indifferent to the university’s recent acquisitions and demolitions as they argue that SU has the right to do as it wishes with its properties.

“I mean by the law, yeah, they can,” Haas said. “They can take down the whole town if they want to buy us all up. I get that.”

Recently, community members expressed concern that SU didn’t obtain a permit to demolish the home located at 813 Comstock Ave., as one was not publicly available via a city database. But Dishaw confirmed that new software to display demolition permits is currently in a pilot phase, which led to the confusion. An SU spokesperson provided a copy of the permit to The D.O.

Haas also expressed concerns about the demolition of homes with regard to “keeping the fabric of the neighborhood intact.”

“Some of the buildings that they might have put up in the past aren’t the prettiest things to look at at times,” Haas said. “They have an architectural school that they could lean on, you know, are there ways to incorporate these buildings into their plans? I just think they’re doing things willy-nilly in regards to these houses that are in and around the campus.”

As a part of SU’s 2017 Campus Framework Plan, the university outlined potential expansion opportunities for residence halls and dining centers beyond the current campus boundaries.

Included in the diagrams are mock-ups of two new residence halls on the 700 block of Ostrom Avenue labeled “Campus Building Opportunities” as well as outlines indicating housing and dining development areas along the 800 block of Comstock Avenue.

A university spokesperson said SU recently began an effort to “refresh” the Campus Framework Plan to ensure that the physical campus aligns with the university’s strategic goals.

Residents also expressed concerns about the economic impacts of the university acquiring more properties throughout the city and how it will impact the city’s tax revenue – which SU’s non-profit status exempts it from paying – as well as how increased student housing will affect local property owners.

As the university expands its housing, Gruber said, owners of student rentals in the areas surrounding the university will likely look to sell their properties as their tenant base shrinks. Gruber believes this could either increase the amount of owner-occupancy homes in the area or lead to further university expansion.

“We just don’t know,” Gruber said of the university’s plans. “Nobody has said.”

Haas understands the university’s desire to expand its campus, but he wants to ensure that the process is done without destroying the character of the neighborhood.

“I do have the understanding of why you might want to have the students closer to the campus,” Haas said. “Obviously, having them more together in a community and being able to walk to places easier … , that sounds great. But let’s go about it the right way.”

Published on September 19, 2022 at 1:19 am

Contact Danny: ddamron@syr.edu | @dannyamron_