The following e-filed documents, listed by NYSCEF document number (Motion 001) 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 52, 54, 77, 80 were read on this motion for DISMISSAL. The following e-filed documents, listed by NYSCEF document number (Motion 003) 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81 were read on this motion for LEAVE TO INTERVENE. DECISION + ORDER ON MOTION This action arises from the City of New York’s 2021 rezoning of the SoHo and NoHo neighborhoods in Manhattan. At the last stage of public consideration of the rezoning proposal, the City Council added to that proposal a prohibition on college or university uses of property in the rezoned area. In response, New York University has sued the City of New York, asking this court to declare that the college-and-university-uses prohibition is void as beyond the City Council’s authority to impose. NYU’s claims implicate weighty questions of law and policy about local zoning authority in the context of town-gown relations. Also weighty, however, is the principle that courts must limit themselves to adjudicating only “actual controversies for parties that have a genuine stake in the litigation.” (Matter of Association for a Better Long Island, Inc. v. New York State Dept. of Envtl. Conservation, 23 NY3d 1, 6 [2014].) That principle is relevant — indeed, dispositive — here. The zoning rules for SoHo and NoHo in place before the challenged rezoning also prohibited college and university uses of property. As a result, that rezoning did not adversely affect NYU’s right to use its property in rezoned SoHo/NoHo. NYU could not use that property without obtaining a zoning variance before, and it may not use that property without obtaining a zoning variance now. Absent some identifiable, current injury, and NYU points to none, NYU lacks standing to bring its current challenge to the City’s prohibition on college/university uses in the rezoned neighborhoods. NYU’s action must be dismissed. BACKGROUND This action relates to an area in the SoHo and NoHo neighborhoods in Manhattan. (See New York City Zoning Resolution [ZR] art. 14, Appendix A [map of rezoned area];1 see also NYSCEF No.31 [map submitted by NYU showing rezoned area].) This area was zoned for many years for manufacturing uses. (NYSCEF No. 2 at 20 [complaint].) Under that zoning, college and university uses were prohibited, and could be undertaken only through the grant of a zoning variance by the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals. (See NYSCEF No. 30 at 17 [affidavit of NYU's senior director of campus planning]; ZR §§42-00, 42-12 [describing educational uses permitted as-of-right in manufacturing district]; id. §§42-31, 42-32 [describing uses permitted by special permit in manufacturing district]; see also NYSCEF No. 21 [grant of zoning variance to NYU for a university building within the area at issue in this action].) In 2015, the Department of City Planning began studying the possibility of updating SoHo and NoHo’s zoning rules. (See NYSCEF No. 2 at 21.) In 2020, the Department began the public-review process for rezoning these neighborhoods into a “special district,” in which “zoning rules applicable to both manufacturing and residential districts would jointly apply.” (Id. at
23-26.) This process, the City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, continued through much of 2021. (See id. at
