N.Y.U. Expansion Plan in Greenwich Village Wins Key Vote New York University's scaled-back plan to expand its campus in Greenwich Village over 20 years won crucial approvals from a City Council committee on Tuesday, all but assuring that the university will get the city's go-ahead to proceed with its much-debated development. The university, with 50,000 students and 17,500 workers, has long complained that it has far less space per student than other prominent universities and needs new classrooms and dormitories to attract students, accommodate a growing enrollment and end some of its costly leases. But many residents of the Village and university faculty members have opposed the large project from its inception, arguing that it would erode the quiet, low-rise character of one of the city's signature bohemian and student quarters. The university's plan calls for adding four buildings to land already largely occupied by two sprawling university apartment complexes south of Washington Square Park. Its initial plan would have added an Empire State Building's worth of floor space to the seven buildings that make up the apartment complexes: Washington Square Village and Silver Towers, which occupy roughly 12 city blocks between Third and Houston Streets. But under pressure from opponents and the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, the university agreed in April to trim the project's size by 17 percent to 19 percent, depending on who was counting. The plan was further modified in June by the city's Planning Commission, which eliminated a university proposal for a hotel and several stores outside the project's footprint, but gave the university extra classroom and office space in one of the four planned buildings. It was the zoning and other changes recommended by the commission, along with modifications sought by council members, that were approved on Tuesday, first by the Council's zoning subcommittee and then by its full Land Use Committee. The full committee's vote was 19 to 1, with Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn dissenting. The full Council is scheduled to vote on the plan on July 25. After the vote, the Council released a statement indicating that Margaret Chin, who represents Greenwich Village, had secured commitments from the university to reduce the aboveground size of three of the buildings by an additional 17.4 percent, cutting one near Mercer Street from 11 stories to 4 and leaving more light and space around the three buildings. The changes amount to a 26 percent reduction in space from N.Y.U."s original plan. Councilwoman Chin also received promises from the university to preserve more parkland and to add more communal space for neighborhood residents to use, including a public atrium. Speaker Christine C. Quinn applauded the new plan, saying it assured that N.Y.U. remained a good neighbor while promoting "the growth of the city by allowing the university to be more competitive." Alicia D. Hurley, the university's vice president for government and community affairs, said she was delighted by the committee vote because it gave the university "the opportunity to be able to grow in predictable fashion over the next two decades" and minimize the impact of expansion by "doing it on our property in Greenwich Village." Construction would not begin until 2014 and would take 20 years to complete. However, many members of the full-time faculty - 40 percent of whom live in the two affected apartment complexes - were not pleased by the vote and predicted that the dust and noise of construction would ruin their pleasure in working for the university. "A 26 percent reduction won't make daily life any less horrific for 20 years at least," said Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies. The project has political ramifications because both Mr. Stringer and Ms. Quinn are expected to run for mayor and compete for the votes of the Village's generally liberal residents. Opponents like Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, urged council members, particularly Ms. Chin, to reject the plan and require N.Y.U. to go back to the drawing board. They said the plan would require selling off public parkland, eliminate open space in a park-starved neighborhood and violate the so-called towers-in-the-park concept under which N.Y.U. was given the land to build the two apartment complexes. University officials argued that if they could not build on that parcel, they would have to continue buying up, tearing down or converting buildings, which would further damage the neighborhood's character and infuriate residents. In a statement, Mr. Berman called the Land Use Committee's approval "a slap in the face to the thousands of area residents and the countless N.Y.U. faculty and staff workers who called for the plan to be voted down." "We will take this battle to the full Council," he added, "and possibly beyond." On the large southern half of the parcel under the approved plan, N.Y.U. would tear down its athletic center and build a dormitory and academic building. The university would give the city the option to build a seven-story public school where a supermarket now sits. On the parcel's northern half, it would build two boomerang-shape academic buildings in the space between the four slablike apartment buildings of Washington Square Village. Much of the new interior space would go below street level, though the university agreed not to build underneath several parkland strips, so mature trees would be protected.