NASA, HUD Cut 8 Boston Urban Renewal Projects

Federal budget cuts struck home last week when the National Acrobatics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development predicted the demise of eight urban renewal projects in Boston and Cambridge.

Amid protests from local groups, NASA announced that it was closing its uncompleted Electronics Research Center, an urban renewal project at Kendall Square.

About 850 NASA researchers and employees have worked in the $30 million center and in nearby rented office space.

"We are simply faced with the hard fact that NASA cannot afford to continue to invest broadly in electronics research as we have in the past," said NASA administrator Thomas O. Paine.

"As, we reduce the total program and alter its direction, we must reduce the institutional base of support," he added.

The Cambridge Redevelopment Authority as well as City Manager James L. Sullivan and other local officials charged NASA with violation of its urban renewal contract with Cambridge. Sullivan said the City might take the issue to court.

"I think it highly unlikely that at the level the decision was made, NASA was aware of the contract they had with the City of Cambridge." Sullivan said yesterday. "It's a rather serious situation if Uncle Sam doesn't honor its commitments."

Desperate

A group of 27 Cambridge organizations plans to present a petition to the City Council urging that part of the 29-acre NASA site and adjacent property be used for "desperately needed housing."

The new City Council will probably take up the NASA issue after electing a mayor this week.

NASA has suggested that the FederalAviation Administration take over the site, but local officials are reluctant to accept a substitute occupant.

The NASA research center "is an economic generator for the area in terms of jobs," Sullivan said yesterday. "Substituting another federal office for the economic generating power of NASA just doesn't make any sense. We don't need another non-taxable property in the City of Cambridge."

Across the Charles River, Boston Mayor Kevin White announced that HUD had granted only $16 million of a requested $76 million in urban renewal funds for the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA).

"It is clear that the Nixon Administration has turned its back on metropolitan Boston," said White, citing the NASA closing and HUD's rejection of BRA requests for seven partially completed projects.

Among the housing projects that will be affected by HUD's decision is a 6-acre project on North Harvard Street in Allston, Work on 212 units of moderate and low-income housing began there recently after a long and intense eviction battle.