Riverside Petitions To Block Harvard

Calling Harvard a “force of nature” which must be stopped, residents of Riverside submitted a stringent rezoning petition to the Cambridge City Council last night, which they said would protect their neighborhood from the University.

Last night’s petition, dubbed the “Carlson Petition” after Riverside activist Cob Carlson, is an attempt to circumvent the city planning board’s moderating influence on the neighborhood’s zoning recommendation.

Neighborhood representatives spent more than a year-and-a-half putting together zoning recommendations, and wrapped up this summer by sending it on to the planning board—but they said they fear the board will weaken their original proposal.

“They’re very much pro-development, pro-institution,” Carlson said of the planning board members as he sat at last night’s meeting among a slew of neighbors, all sporting “I Crow for Riverside” stickers. “We felt that they were skewing our petition.”

The rezoning battle has been particularly focused on a controversial Harvard-owned parcel by the Charles currently occupied by Mahoney’s Garden Center.

Harvard initially planned to put a new 55’ tall modern art museum on the site, but gave up on that this summer in favor of tentative plans for graduate student housing.

At the time of Harvard’s proposal, the site was zoned to allow buildings up to 120’ in height.

Neighbors, strongly opposed to Harvard’s original plan—and still angry over the University’s other buildings in the area, such as Peabody Terrace and Mather Towers—asked the City Council for a moratorium on all new development in the summer of 2000. This move led the way for the area to be rezoned to restrict the height of any new buildings.

Since April of 2001, the Riverside Study Committee has been working to create zoning for their neighborhood—with particular focus on Harvard-owned sites, especially Mahoney’s.

Early this summer, the group wrapped up its plans, recommending rezoning for the Mahoney’s site that would allow a maximum height of 24’ and would restrict building density so that Harvard could not build on much of the land.

But even 24’ of Harvard building was unacceptable to many of the study committee members, who urged either for Harvard to donate the land for a park or for the city to take the land by eminent domain.

And now that the planning board will likely submit a zoning proposal less restrictive than the study committee’s plan, neighbors are up in arms and are asking the council to take their original proposal without alteration by the planning board.

“I’ve come to view Harvard University as a force of nature,” said study committee member Alex Wysoker. “We have no choice but to fight—otherwise we will be overwhelmed by the flood waters.”

The planning board, which typically makes recommendations on all zoning, is currently in the midst of discussing changes to the Riverside Study Committee’s recommendations before they ship them along to the City Council—which alone has the authority to change zoning.

Planning board member Hugh Russell ’64 said he and other members think the Riverside committee’s proposal requires significant changes.

“Their view was that it ought to stay Mahoney’s in perpetuity or else become a park,” Russell said. “To me, that didn’t make a lot of sense.”

Russell called Riverside’s recommended zoning “punitive.”

“It says ‘we don’t trust you,’” Russell said.

In their July hearing, the planning board discussed creating a 45’ height limit on the site, while giving Harvard the option of obtaining special permission for taller buildings, Russell said.

Russell added that he hopes to work with Harvard on making a smoother transition, with less fencing, between Mather, Peabody Terrace and the surrounding community.

Meanwhile, neighborhood activists are still hoping for a park on the Mahoney’s site—and for the city to take the land by eminent domain.

“We would love it, everyone’s for it,” Carlson said. “But we’ve gotten the cold shoulder from the City Council and the city manager.”

Faced with the prospect of deciding between two rezoning petitions for the controversial site, city councillor David P. Maher, a veteran of previous rezoning projects, said the City Council would likely compromise between the two.

As for the idea that the city should take the property by eminent domain— which allows the city to take a property from a private owner, while requiring the city to pay “market value”—several councillors were skeptical last night.

“I think the council in general has shied away from eminent domain in the past,” Maher said. “I think you have to be prepared for the legal ramifications of that.”

According to Russell, eminent domain cases often wind up in court—and require the municipality involved to pay “the most [a property] could possibly ever be worth,” which could amount to tens of millions of dollars, he said.

Meanwhile, Harvard’s Director of Community Relations Mary H. Power said the University would be unlikely to support either of the petitions which will go before the City Council. Both options promise to restrict Harvard’s ability to build housing.

“It’s likely that Harvard will have concerns regarding both,” Power said.

—Staff writer Lauren R. Dorgan can be reached at dorgan@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Christopher M. Loomis can be reached at cloomis@fas.harvard.edu.