The Council Wants More From Harvard

Frustrated Cambridge residents this week renewed a perennial town-gown conflict over the tax-exempt status of Harvard and MIT by demanding that city officials find ways to force "the wealthiest institutions and individuals in this city to pay their fair share."

At a Monday city council hearing, residents specifically pressed the city manager to introduce legislation at the State House that would make the taxation of private universities mandatory. They also asked city councilors and the Board of Assessors to pressure the schools to increase their "in-lieu-of-tax" payments.

Harvard, as a non-profit institution, has been free from taxation, to the chagrin of local tenants and small homeowners who claim they must shoulder an unfair proportion of the property tax burden.

Each year Harvard and MIT voluntarily pay a combined total of $800,000 to the city in partial compensation for their tax-exempt status. City Manager James L. Sullivan on Monday said this town gown arrangement has been a model for university communities elsewhere in the country. "Frankly," he said, "it's not required. And it's a generous addition to the city rolls."

Barbara Ware, president of a homeowners' group said at the hearing that the schools have contributed to rising taxes here. "There's been a lot of people driven out of Cambridge by high taxes already," she said.

Harvard officials declined to appear at the hearing, but issued a joint statement with MIT citing the economic benefits the schools bring to Cambridge including tax monies for commercial properties owned by the universities. Donald C. Moulton, Harvard's assistant vice president for community affairs, said later the statement reflected Harvard's attitude that it "makes a substantial contribution to the financial condition" of the city.

A community affairs officer from MIT appeared at the hearing to warn that the schools cannot sustain a full tax burden: "Like Shylock. I say to the people here, prick us and we bleed."

The hearing followed a city council order passed by a 7-0 margin on March 3 that sought an increase in school payments and state legislative action to tax private institutions. Residents at Monday's hearing pressed city officials to implement the order as soon as possible.

The rallying at City Hall Monday may have been an exercise in futility for the tenants and homeowners, however. City Manager Sullivan told the council he thought passage of a new state tax law would be both impossible and "probably unconstitutional." He added that such a law might be interpreted by other communities as a license to tax all non-profit institutions, including churches and charity groups.