University Builds New Housing

Nearly two years after the University announced plans to tear down 8 and 10 Mt. Auburn St. in order to construct more housing for Harvard affiliates, construction on a modified version of the project has finally begun.

Workers from the Columbia Construction company of North Reading began digging the foundation for a four-story building at 8 Mt. Auburn St. last month. The University had originally planned to construct a new building at 10 Mt. Auburn St. as well, but after community activists protested, Harvard elected to renovate the three-story Queen Anne-style building instead.

The construction and renovation, which will provide 43 units of housing with some commercial space on the first floor, should cost about $5 million, Director of Planning Robert A. Silverman said yesterday.

The project will be finished by next summer, according to Vice President for Administration Robert H. Scott. "Construction should take slightly more than one year; that's typical for this kind of building," he said.

Once completed, 40 of the 43 apartments will be made available to Harvard affiliates by Harvard Real Estate, Scott said. "They will rent the buildings at market rates to students and faculty," he said. Harvard will not begin looking for tenants for the commercial space until the buildings are six to nine months from completion.

Under the terms of Harvard's building permit, the other three housing units will be subject to rent control, which means that Harvard can charge only limited rents on those apartments.

This construction project has long been controversial. Some Cambridge residents have charged that the additional commercial space would increase traffic in the area and criticize Harvard for attempting to expand further into the community.

Two tenant activists, Robert La Tremouille and Michael Turk, have filed a complaint with the rent control commission saying that Harvard's permit to renovate 10 Mt. Auburn is illegal because it will tear up a rent control apartment, and La Tremouille said he is awaiting the results of their appeal to the commission.

In an effort to prevent construction last spring, community activists filed a petition to have the 94-year-old building at 10 Mt. Auburn declared a historical landmark. Although the Housing Commission eventually decided against making 10 Mt. Auburn a landmark, it did place a six-month freeze on construction. As a result, Harvard eventually decided to renovate rather than tear down the building.