Legislating a Town-Gown Truce

When Mary Ellen Preusser, former Cambridge city councilor, initiated a petition last year calling for legislation restricting university expansion, town-gown relations in the city took a new turn.

"We've all seen a great deal of rhetoric over the years, but this was the first attempt to do anything through legislation. The universities found it very shocking," Preusser says.

The result of Preusser's petition--a law enabling Cambridge to regulate institutional use of lower-density residentially-zoned areas--is the most recent development in the city's 20-year-old struggle over land acquisition by universities.

Harvard's expansion has driven up the cost of living in the surrounding areas since students compete for housing and university land purchases reduce the tax base.

"We've seen the university expand into neighborhoods that have been struggling to retain a residential character," Preusser said.

Ironically, the land use bill passed last year does not limit Harvard's expansion. The university, protected in the constitution of the Commonwealth, is currently exempt from any regulations the city passes. But this exemption may not stand much longer. A bill repealing Harvard's exemption on this particular issue has already passed State Senate and House committees. The Commonwealth is expected to adopt the legislation later this year.

Concern about the future of this bill is particularly strong because of the expiration of another Harvard policy. In 1972, the University agreed to outline on a map its development plans, saying that these "red lined" areas would be the sole focus of its future acquisitions until 1980.

Although Harvard drew its own "red lines"--there is some dispute on whether the university has strictly followed them--the policy has at least given Cambridge some idea as to what to expect. Many city leaders fear what will happen, now that the policy has expired.

"We told the city that we would live by the red line until a new community report is issued and we intend to stick by our word," Lewis A. Armistead, director of community relations says. "Since we've always lived by the zoning, ordinances, the repeal of the constitutional exemption won't really affect us," he adds.

Although the battle has traditionally centered around Harvard, the city's largest landholder, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Lesley College have more recently become embroiled.

In contrast to Harvard, MIT's relationship with Cambridge over the past decade has been relatively placid. But this is largely due to MIT's propitious location. While Harvard is surrounded by residential areas, MIT is contiguous with primarily industrial land. As a result, its territorial expansion has raised only a fraction of the ruckus caused by Harvard's

The peace, however, has become very fragile.

In the late '60s, MIT bought about 40 acres of relatively undeveloped land in East Cambridge from the Simplex Wire and Cable Company, and in the last 10 years the school has been slowly buying up property adjacent to the original parcel. Much of this land was purchased from small industries or residents who were forced to leave.

Once the area was largely family-oriented. Now students occupy many of the apartments.

This area along the city's industrial belt has one of the worst crime rates in the Boston area. Much of the vacant land at the Simplex site has been used as a dump. In addition, MIT has leased property to the state for drug clinics, halfway houses, mental health rehabilitation centers, and "wet drops" for alcoholics.

"People are screaming, because MIT is renting this land to so many social agenices, and throwing them into the area in high concentration," James Caragines, a resident of Cambridgeport for over 50 years, says. "The problem centers are not supervised well. We would like to see the area deinstitutionalized," he adds.

To this end, the Cambridgeport Alliance has been holding monthly community hearings to discuss the development of the area and to consider rezoning it, although so far no legislative action has been taken.

Like MIT, Lesley has, in the past few years, been running into unexpected problems. In the late '60s, the college planned to expand its classrooms and dormitories. With the approval of the City Council, the school closed the east end of Mellon Street and constructed the first phase of the new campus.

But in 1977, when Lesley began purchasing land in the second step of its plan, college officials encountered a different response. Residents of the Agassiz neighborhood filed a petition to downzone the two-block area into which the college intended to expand. Despite angry letters and attempts at negotiation from Lesley, the council passed the downzoning proposal last spring.

In November, the council asked Lesley to declare a self-imposed moratorium on the purchase of property until new guidelines to implement the land use regulations were prepared. The college's board of trustees unanimously rejected the proposal.

Robert D. Lewis, executive vice-president of Lesley, attributed the conflict to ignorance. "We essentially didn't know one another existed in terms of major interests until about three years ago," he says, adding, "We knew there was a Cambridge Agassiz group, but it was then caught up mostly in confrontations with Harvard."

Preusser sees the problem differently. "Fifteen to 20 years ago when Lesley closed the street, they did so in a very freewheeling way by accommodating the council," she says. "This time they encountered a totally different situation. The council was not willing to make deals with them."

William Collins, a member of Cambridge's community development department, has been working on a plan to implement the land use regulations since October. "The approach is a progressive one, recognizing the need of institutions to remain vital while seeking to preserve the residential integrity of neighborhoods," Collins says. But he adds, "I'm not sure just how the council will react to it."

Collins will take his proposal to the city this month. If it passes, Cambridge will have its first set of real guidelines regulating universities since the dispute began. If it fails, there will be other tries, for leaders on both sides of the fence seem to agree that the relationship between the city and its institutions is entering a new era