University Pays Debt Of $50,000

A University spokesman disclosed yesterday that Harvard paid Cambridge $50,000 last month--money it owed in the aftermath of a complicated land deal on Sacramento St. near Lesley College.

The deal that led to the payment began more than a year ago, when the city council voted to take the vacant lot by eminent domain. Based on an old appraisal, they paid Harvard $480,000 for the land.

But the University--confident, according to sources, that the property was actually worth at least $750,000--took Cambridge to court, much to the distress of city officials who pleaded with Harvard to be satisfied with the $480,000 price.

A judge sided with Harvard and ordered a new appraisal. An independent appraising firm (with Donald Moulton, a former Harvard community relations official in its employ) took the assignment, and found, after investigation, that the land was actually worth only $430,000.

"If they hadn't gone to court they would have won some of the city's good will--and they would be $50,000 richer," one city official who asked not to be identified, said yesterday.

But Harvard spokesman Louis A. Armistead said yesterday the battle may not yet be over. The University is paying for yet another appraisal of the lot on which it once planned faculty housing, and if that appraisal comes back significantly higher it may reinstitute court proceedings.