Goyette, Planning Office Chief, to Leave Harvard

Harold L. Goyette, director of the planning office, will leave Harvard sometime in the next year to establish his own planning and architectural firm.

Goyette's departure--after a 23-year stay at the University--coincides with an administrative reshuffling which officials say may eventually result in the complete restructuring of the planning office.

Calling his career at Harvard "delightful, productive and constructive," Goyette said yesterday he will stay on at Harvard for the next year to help reshape his office's role and the University's future construction plans.

New Plans

Sources close to the planning office said recently that Goyette, who was the University's first professional planner, has been talking for some time about leaving Harvard, and that his departure--which has been kept quiet in Holyoke Center--is connected to Massachusetts Hall plans for reorganizing the administrative wing of the University.

"Harvard is going through a transition," Joe B. Wyatt, vice president for administration, said yesterday, adding that "the University is very likely not to be developing nearly as much new space in the future decade as in the past."

During Goyette's more than 20 years in the planning office, the University has developed extensive land holdings and has added an array of buildings, including the Science Center, Holyoke Center and a variety of residential and athletic facilities.

During that period, the University has also come under heavy fire from community leaders and residents who charge that Harvard's plans include purchasing almost every available piece of real estate in Cambridge.

In the past two years, the construction management division has split from the planning office and responsibility for day-to-day upkeep of the University-owned property and buildings has been shifted to Harvard Real Estate, Inc.

Wyatt said that it is not clear yet whether the planning office will remain a distinct administrative unit, adding that he has not yet formed a search committee to find a replacement for Goyette.

Goyette, who said he will set up a firm in the Cambridge area and will still be available to the University, said the most important change he introduced to Harvard is that the University now views planning "not as a product, but as a process."

Even though the University has designed and constructed a variety of buildings during his tenure as chief of the planning office, Goyette said he believes the most important thing the University has done is "retain a sense of history and tradition" and a commitment to the conservation of old buildings.

The University is currently engaged in a study of how to renovate the River Houses with funds collected from the $250 million Harvard campaign.

Goyette, who received his masters degree in architecture from Harvard and joined the planning office in 1957, said he has thought about starting his own planning and architectural firm for some time. "I want to get into my private practice and my professional career," he said.

Wyatt labelled Goyette's career "distinguished," saying that "a number of buildings here bear his mark."

Goyette's accomplishments include helping the office of government and community affairs devise the "Daly red line"--a 1974 self-imposed boundary on the University's resident property acquisitions--and planning the Science Center underpass