Relocation or Eviction?

For more than 50 years, Holden Green has served as a pleasant married housing community for about 100 Harvard student families.

The quaint rowhouses have a short turnover period on the average, but each year new friends are made, community programs and day care centers established, and strong neighborhood ties developed.

But something has happened to stir that serenity. Within the last few months the University, under the direction of Russell E. Hill, director of the Real Estate Department, has drawn up a draft for the "Proposed Married Student Housing Renovation Program."

To the residents of Holden Green, many of whom are happy in their two- and three-bedroom apartments, the Hill plan means only one thing: a preparation for an eviction notice.

And that's what is behind the letters that the Married Students Tenants Housing Council sent the council of deans last Thursday.

The plan calls for all residents from Holden Green and Shaler Lane, the other old married housing dormitory, to be moved to the new Soldiers Field Park complex, or Peabody Terrace on or before June 15.

At that point the renovations, which Hill claims are so major that the residents cannot possibly stay in their rooms, will begin.

But the tenants council disputes both the need for renovations and the necessity of such dramatic rent increases--like the 35-per-cent hike for new tenants that the University announced last year.

And, although the residents will continue to pay their Holden Green and Shaler Lane rates for the more fancy Soldiers Field apartments, they fear that when they return, their rents for the old apartments will be sky high.

"We don't consider the term 'eviction' and 'relocation' to be synonymous," Hill said yesterday. "When they come back they will pay a different rate," he said. "But you can't expect to put in, say, $1 million renovations, and not expect the rents to go up."

Hill cautions the residents that their fears may be premature--that the proposal is only in the draft stage, and will be submitted to the residents for discussion.

But for the residents, the plans signify a lack of faith on Hill's part. Some of them say they believe the proposal will no doubt be forced through, making them flee their neighborhood for no good reason and then have to pay substantially for it later.

As John McMahon, secretary of the tenants council put it on Thursday. "The issue is whether the tenants themselves should have the right to live without luxury because it is important for us to live cheap."