Planners' Report

Last February, the Cambridge City Council asked the Planning Board to study the development of the Bennett Street MTA Yards; early last month, the Board reported on the whole Harvard Square area. Its 65-page report, based on the assumption that the development of the Yards is "inextricably intertwined" with the future of the Square, proposes that the two areas be combined into a single busines and shopping center.

The Board advises the City Council to have the entire Harvard Square business district declared an urban renewal area, after which it says, Cambridge could take the Yards by right of eminent domain. Next, two blocks opposite the Treadway Motor House would be demolished to form a "super block," and the City would be ready to build. The proposed development, which the Board has tentatively named "University Plaza," might include convention and cultural centers, hotels and motels, and medical offices and research facilities. A pedestrian mall over Mt. Auburn Street would link it to Brattle Square.

In defending its proposals for the Yards, the Planning Board claims that the developments envisioned by the four bidders would at least double the volume of traffic going by the Square. (The Board believes that congestion in the Square can be eliminated, but only through improvements costing $350,000.) The Board also fears that stores around the Square will move to newer locations in a Yard development unless both the Yards and the Squares are covered by a broad urban renewal program.

Although the planners refrain from commenting on individual bids, they point out that most of the preliminary plans violate zoning regulations. The development proposed by Cambridge attorney Francis J. Roche exceeds the maximum residential density, and all the plans but Harvard's exceed the permissible gross floor area. In the estimates for parking space, the Board finds additional discrepancies: even Harvard, which makes the best showing, falls 215 per cent short of the number of spaces desired. And the Board concludes, pessimistically, that it may take twenty years to fill all the proposed offices, stores, and apartments.

While the report, naturally enough, is concerned primarily with the City's interests, several pages are devoted to the question of finding an alternate location for the Tenth House. The Board suggests that the House be built on four blocks lying north and east of Dunster House and Leverett Towers. According to a table in the report, Harvard already owns 38 per cent of this property, and Cambridge holds another 17 per cent. If Harvard rejects offers of dormitory space from the other MTA bidders, the Board says, the City should consider seizing the rest of the land and giving it to the University.

Some of the limited proposals in the Board's report deserve to be taken seriously. Whatever is finally built on the MTA Yards, it is sure to bring more traffic into the Square, and the Boards ideas (which include a computer-controlled signal system) might ease its flow. The suggested site for the Tenth House, moreover, seems a reasonable alternative if Harvard cannot get the Yards. But the Planning Board's Grand Design is unrealistic and marred by numerous inconsistencies. It is hard to see how a development resembling a second Prudential Center can be built on the 12-acre Yards, and it is even harder to see the necessity of building another Prudential Center. According to legal authorities, if Cambridge wants the Yards for a business center, it will not be able to get them by eminent domain.

From Harvard's viewpoint, of course, this is fortunate. The development that the Planning Board proposes would change the character not only of Eliot and Kirkland Houses but of the whole University. Since the City Council has shown no interest in discussing the Board's report, there is a healthy chance that it will not be approved.