House Okays Limits On Harvard Growth

The state House of Representatives yesterday approved and sent to the Senate a bill that would allow Cambridge to regulate Harvard's expansion into surrounding residential neighborhoods.

The legislation, cleared by the House's Committee on Bills yesterday and immediately engrossed, could clear the Senate by the end of the month, sources on Beacon Hill said yesterday. If passed and signed by Gov. Edward J. King, the law would permit Cambridge to force Harvard to follow city zoning codes.

Harvard is currently exempt from most city zoning. The legislature last year allowed Cambridge to regulate other city colleges and universities but excepted Harvard because of an antiquated passage in the state's Constitution protecting the University.

City officials say the law, if passed, would not only help control Harvard's expansion into surrounding neighborhoods but also might give Cambridge new bargaining power in its relations with the University.

"Now all we can do is criticize; if this law is passed, it would make Harvard take the city government more seriously," City Councilor David Sullivan said last night.

Harvard officials said yesterday they were not opposed to the law and added that its passage would have little effect.

"We have always followed city zoning--this wouldn't change the ballgame very much at all," Louis A. Armistead, assistant to the vice president for community relations, said last night.

The city is presently preparing special zoning restrictions designed to limit the density of educational uses by the institutions it has jurisdiction over. The city council this winter put a moratorium on institutional conversion of existing properties while all those new codes are being prepared--a moratorium that would apply to Harvard should the law pass the state.

"I think it will get a good reception in the Senate; I don't foresee any problems," State Sen. Michael LoPresti, who represents Cambridge, said yesterday. "If Sen. (Francis S.) McCann (the other senator from the area) and I are in agreement, it usually goes through with reasonable speed, perhaps one to two weeks," LoPresti added.