Roxbury Tenant Group Proposes A Committee To Discuss Rent Hikes

The Roxbury Tenants of Harvard proposed on Saturday a five-man committee to consider the issue of maintenance repair as it relates to a rent increase which the University is now contemplating for housing in the medical area.

Robert S. Parks, president of the tenants' association, and John Sharratt, urban consultant to the tenants, made the proposal to Edward S. Gruson, assistant to the President for Community Affairs. They will meet again with Gruson on Wednesday to obtain the University's decision on the proposal.

As proposed, the committee would include Gruson, Parks, Sharratt, a representative from Harvard's realtor, Hunneman and Co., and one from the Office of Taxes, Insurance, and Real Estate. It would make final judgment on rent increases which may be needed to rehabilitate the housing at health and safety code standards.

The rent increase now being considered by Harvard would affect about one-third of the 182 homes which are to be demolished to make room for construction of medical institutions. These homes, the last ones to be affected, are scheduled to be taken in 1975.

Harvard has frozen rents for the rest of the housing, where evictions are scheduled to begin in 1973. Henry H. Cutler, manager for Taxes, Insurance, and Real Estate, said yesterday that, because these houses are to be taken soonest, "not as much will be spent to keep them in first-class condition."

In a letter to the tenants' association last January, Cutler stated that repairs which were needed to maintain health and safety code standards in existing housing would be made free of charge to tenants. But tenants are concerned that the cost of basic maintenance repair will be reflected in any future rent increase, Parks said yesterday.