Agassiz Residents To Negotiate With Harvard

Facing a major expansion of Harvard’s science facilities in their neighborhood, an influential group of Cambridge residents indicated last night they are willing to negotiate with the University but presented an ambitious list of demands.

About 45 people who live in the Agassiz neighborhood around the North Yard voted unanimously to take a less contentious route than other areas of Cambridge and to seek a building moratorium from the City Council only as a last resort.

But in return for their willingness to compromise, the residents presented Harvard officials with more than a dozen negotiating points, including a $1 million endowment for afterschool and community outreach programs and a $15 to $20 million trust to create more parks in the city.

The Agassiz Committee on the Impacts of Development (ACID) delivered its list of points, which it calls “recommendations,” to University officials on Monday. And Mary H. Power, senior director of community relations, said the University is prepared to discuss them.

“We certainly could not agree to them as drafted,” she said, “but I appreciate the effort on the part of the neighborhood to organize their views in a way that can help a constructive conversation.”

Power said that the so-called “Trust for Open Space,” which would be used to buy land and convert it to green space, had never been suggested before this week and that she had not yet discussed it with other University officials.

“I want to keep the spirit of engagement open, but that is clearly a significant and unprecedented, bold suggestion of a scale that would be very difficult for Harvard to agree to,” she said. “The idea behind it is certainly worth considering and discussing.”

Members of ACID said the proposal needs “broad exploration” and does not necessarily represent a concrete demand.

The Agassiz Neighborhood Council, including members of the activist ACID group, met in the cafeteria of the Baldwin Elementary School to hear a presentation from architects and University officials outlining proposed development of the North Yard, including new labs clustered around a grassy yard and an underground parking garage.

After the presentation, the University officials were asked to leave so the residents could respond to the plans and decide how to proceed.

“There’s a lot of things Harvard didn’t tell you,” said William Bloomstein, a member of ACID.

He told residents that the proposed construction will take 15 years and will create more than a million square feet of buildings.

“This is the largest construction Harvard’s ever going to do in the city of Cambridge,” he said. “They’re going to basically take this entire area and blow it up.”

Residents took a straw poll and voted unanimously to proceed with the list of ACID’s 16 recommendations even as they continue to meet about the specific details.

In addition to the afterschool and green space proposals, the requests ask Harvard to limit the impacts of construction, study how its new facilities would affect traffic and preserve retail space along Mass. Ave.

Bloomstein said he thinks this negotiating tactic will work because the University, having lost development battles in several other neighborhoods, is in a position to make concessions.

“Harvard, I believe, is at a turning point,” he said. “They’re looking for a win, and they need these buildings.”

Other neighborhoods in the city have adopted more aggressive tactics to fight Harvard expansion. Riverside, the area along the Charles River, won a building moratorium from the City Council. Though the moratorium will expire next month, it prevents Harvard from building and helped to kill the University’s plans for a modern art museum.

Bloomstein said Agassiz residents could seek a moratorium if negotiations fail. But he said making such a move would only serve to delay the building process, while striking a deal would allow the neighborhood to obtain concrete benefits—such as the $1 million endowment for neighborhood programs.

Bloomstein indicated that he had received a favorable response from University officials on many of the recommendations.

But at least two major areas of contention remain—the residents’ demands that Harvard scale back the square footage of the entire project and that the archeology and natural history museums remain in their current Oxford Street locations.

According to Power, the proposed development already stays well below what is allowed by city zoning regulations. And she said that while the University has no current plans to move the museums, it may need to consider relocating them in the future to free up the prime buildings for other uses.

Power and representatives from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the firm overseeing the planning, attended the meeting last night to present a series of slides and diagrams showing the current plans for North Yard development.

When Harvard officials turned to the audience for questions, State Rep. Jarrett T. Barrios ’90-’91 (D-Cambridge) asked how the proposals fit into the long-term plans for development across the river in Allston. The Law School and the science facilities have been mentioned as likely contenders to move, but both are going ahead with building projects in Cambridge.

Power said the projects are necessary to meet “pressing short-term needs,” but the buildings would be designed with flexible uses to fit into future plans.

After the meeting, Power said University officials will continue to meet with residents in the coming months to discuss the North Yard expansion plans. The city has created a working committee of Harvard representatives, ACID members and city officials that will meet next month.

Harvard wants “some assurance that development could proceed,” Power said. “Similarly, the neighborhood wants some assurance that commitments we might make in the coming months will have staying power.”

—Staff writer Jessica R. Rubin-Wills can be reached at rubinwil@fas.harvard.edu.