HRE Plans To Up Rent, Increase Irks Tenants

Rental costs for tenants in Harvard-owned housing wil rise significantly if a Harvard Real Estate (HRE) proposal is approved by the university this March, despite tenant complaints about Harvard's methods for determining rent increases.

Officials say the planned increase of up to 9 percent for past renters and up to 20 percent for new renters is a result of an upward spiral in areawide rental rates over the last year.

"It is university policy that rents for affiliated housing are based on rents in the [local] market," said HRE Vice President Nancy Kossan.

In the past, Harvard rents have not quite kept up with the general market. While Cambridge-area rents climbed an average of 12 percent last year, rent on university-owned residences rose only 5 percent on average, Kossan said.

"As much as we're attempting to be at market rates, we've tended to lag," Kossan said. This lag occurred because HRE underestimated how much market rents would rise.

Kossan said that the new rent increases will attempt to make up for the "lag" in past years' rents. They will also incorporate an anticipated 8 percent increase in the market rate for the 1986-87 lease year.

The 9 percent cap on rate increases for continuing renters is the same as that imposed last year by HRE, Kossan said.

The proposed rent increases would not substantially affect demand for housing, Kossan said. "Our demand will still be strong because of the nature of the population that seeks housing."

But Harvard tenants were irked by the increases. HRE is "taking advantage of the fact that they don't have a stable tenant population, which means that people are less likely to protest," said Anne A. Maccoby '87, who rents a Mass. Ave. apartment from the university.

Maccoby said she thought making Harvard affiliates pay market rates is unreasonable. "The population that could afford a market rate is very different from the population in the buildings," she said.

"Cambridge is a city that has rent control because market rates are not fair," said Harvard Tenants Union head Michael H. Turk. "To set rents at market rates is to let Harvard Real Estate gouge some affiliates."

The city's stringent rent control laws apply to about 17,000 units built before 1970. Affiliated housing is exempt from rent control.

"This idea about equitable market rates is nonsense," said third year graduate student Kurt N. Sandburg. Sandburg, who lives in Peabody Terrace, said he will rent from a non-Harvard real estate firm next year. "I found out from realtors that rates in Cambridge for a two bedroom apartment are about twenty percent less than what I'm paying."

HRE officials said that they have improved services for tenants. A new policy, begun this year, allows renters to mail in housing applications. In the past, all applications had to be submitted in person. "It will allow people outside Cambridge to have an equal crack at housing," Kossan.