Sell Now And Save

HARVARD'S community relations director noted several weeks ago that for the third consecutive year, a meeting concerning the Craigie Arms apartments was the first appointment on her calendar. Problems with the 80-year-old building, located across the street from the Mt Auburn St. post office, have been nagging the University that long, but Harvard now has the chance to bring the matter to a constructive conclusion.

Recent developments seem to indicate little has changed. In two decisions in the last two months, the city's rent control board has refused to approve a $2.5 million renovation which Harvard plans for the now-empty building. The rent board must issue special permits that allow the University to remove Craigie Arms '59 apartments from the rental market, thereby adding to the already pressing scarcity of low and moderate-income housing in Cambridge.

The city's political climate makes it unlikely that Harvard will ever receive the city's permission to begin the currently proposed renovation. Housing is always a burning issue in Cambridge, particularly with a municipal election coming in November. One option Harvard is considering--to challenge the rent board in court--would be disastrous, with the extended proceedings serving only to exacerbate malevolent feelings toward the University. In addition, it seems very probable that Harvard would lose.

As an alternative, the University should begin negotiations to sell the decaying building to the city. Harvard spokesmen have consistently attacked this proposal, saying that City Hall can do nothing with Craigie Arms that the University has not already considered as an option. The building, they argue, is a complete shambles, and no one will be able to save it without a substantial cost.

In this instance, they are correct. And as they admit. Harvard cannot undertake a rehabilitation and maintain the building's present low and moderate-income housing stock, thereby denying any chance of return on the sizable investment. The University has its financial standing to consider.

But the city has completely different motivations, such as providing basic needs for its citizens. Renovating Craigie Arms will cost Cambridge just as much as it would Harvard, but it would be a fiscally responsible activity for a municipal government to pursue. And with 2000 names on a waiting list for the city's frozen stock of public housing, the renovation of Craigie Arms is just the type of project the city might begin in an election year.

Clearly, Harvard has very little to gain financially from the sale, after which the University would no longer control the large building or the land on which it sits. But the cost of selling the building is, in a sense, a reparation for Harvard's mismanagement and deceptions in the 16 years it has owned Craigie Arms. The University never intended to maintain the building in its present use. But zoning prohibitions passed in 1980 now prevent Harvard from converting it to institutional use.

Hence the University a present proposal, which would turn Craigie Arms into predominantly luxury housing, with only 14 subsidized low and moderate-income units. University officials have said that the building's current decrepit condition makes their plan the best plan. But when a rent board member asked Harvard's attorney how much capital the University had put into Craigie Arms since 1967, he was unable to answer. Had Harvard undertaken a long-range improvement program 16 years ago, the building would not be in the shape it is.

Moral considerations aside, the sale of the building could have consequences that would help balance Harvard's cost-benefit analysis. Offering the building to Cambridge can only serve to boost relations between the University and the city. A favor now could help in a future negotiation. Holding onto a deteriorating shell of a building in a city facing a housing emergency on the other hand, can do nothing but harm. Craigie Arms is not likely to become the $900-a-month apartment complex the University has envisioned. Harvard should realize this--finally--and stop trying.