Council Asks Halt To MIT Purchases

The Cambridge City Council last night asked the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to agree to a temporary moratorium on property purchases in the Cambridgeport area while city planners study possibilities for commercial development there.

MIT representative Walter Milne said the university would cease purchases for the six to 12 months such a study will take, although he added MIT might buy three properties they currently hold purchase and sale agreements on.

Spurred on by a noisy crowd of Cambridgeport residents, who aceused MIT of "blighting the area," the council also requested that the city's Community Development Department study possible rezoning of the area to attract blue-collar industry.

MIT began purchasing property in the area in 1969 when it acquired the old home of the Simplex Cable factory; since then it has bought at least 11 major pieces of property.

MIT bought the land in hopes of eventually selling it to the Polaroid Corporation for an office complex, but Milne said last night that that company scrapped its plans for the site last November because of slumping profits.

Community residents said last night that MIT's land acquisitions have cost the city 1,988 jobs, 74 rental housing units, and $275,000 annually in taxes.

"Left unchecked, MIT will gain total control over what gets developed in Cambridgeport," Ilene Horowitz, who lives on Magazine St., said last night.

Characterizing MIT as an "octopus bent on the destruction of our neighborhood," Horowitz called on the city council to help "keep that octopus from growing larger."

Milne told the council MIT real estate officials had received "flickers" of interest over the site from two companies, one in California and the other in the Boston area. He added, however, that "there aren't many Polaroids," and that the land will probably have to be sold in pieces instead of one large chunk as envisioned for the Polaroid deal.

He added that MIT has "no substantial university developments in mind" for the property. "We want to market them," Milne said.

The city and MIT seem "headed for a direct confrontation," Councilor David Wylie added.

"We used to say that Harvard should take a lesson in community relations from MIT, but MIT has not seriously planned with the community on this one," Wylie added. "The day is gone when the great institutions can manipulate the city," he said.