Council Tells MIT Not to Evict

The City Council last night told the Massachusetts Institute of Technology not to evict a "Tent City" of homeless people on the university's land, and adopted a new program to match vacant rent-controlled apartments with needy tenants.

In their first meeting after the election, Sullivan Chamber had changed little. Among the familiar features was an acrimonious and inconclusive debate over the merits of rent control.

Although a scheduled hearing on the "Tent City" had been postponed, the Council did approve a non-binding order asking MIT not to evict the encampment of 25 people until the university has reached an "amicable solution" to the squatters' demands.

A spokesman for the group, William O'Leary of East Boston, read a statement demanding several concessions from MIT, including the right to renovate three gutted houses next to the camp. MIT has announced plans to demolish these buildings, which have been vacant for 14 years according to the Tent City activists.

In addition, Tent City asked for the use of a van and asked MIT to study and provide for the community.

Members of the group said they could not wait a week for the City Council's attention because they feared MIT would try to evict them during the coming week. Some blamed Mayor Walter J. Sullivan Jr. for postponing the hearing until next week, because last night's agenda was too long.

The Council also approved a nine-month trial run of a "vacancy match" program for rent-controlled housing. The plan would reward landlords who accepted low-income tenants from a Rent Control Board list. In return, the Board would exempt such landlords from the $80-$120 fee they would usually have to pay when applying for an eviction notice or a rent increase.

This project's chief supporters were members of the Cambridge Civic Association, whose main goal is the maintenance of the rent control system in Cambridge.

Despite his predictions that the program would flop, Councilor Alfred E. Vellucci offered to vote with the four CIA members to "give it a whirl." Vellum's support gave the measure a majority of the Council's nine votes. Later, the program passed 8 to 1, with Councilor William H. Walsh dissenting.

The Council debated, and then defeated, two proposals from Walsh. One would have rewarded landlords in the vacancy match program more liberally--by allowing the owners of apartments in the program to take them off of rent control after five years.

The other would have reserved rent-controlled apartments that became vacant for people on the city's waiting list for public housing. Walsh said this major change in the rent control laws would stop the wealthy from taking advantage of artificially low rents.