Charlesview Residents Demand To Be Heard

Thirty Soldiers Field apartment residents demanded last night the right to negotiate directly with Harvard about the fate of their homes.

The University has expressed interest in taking over the 213-unit Charlesview Apartment complex, which overlooks Harvard’s athletic fields. The University has proposed building a brand-new housing complex elsewhere for the tenants in order to make way for its new Allston campus.

Residents of the low-income apartments are upset that the owners of the complex—a Catholic church, a Protestant church, and a synagogue—have refused to give tenants a seat at the negotiating table, they said at a meeting sponsored by the Charlesview Residents Organization.

“We don’t have any power,” said resident Vinny Anzalone. “Whatever we decide when it goes to the [owner’s] board it can be shot down.”

Last January, Charlesview’s owners formed a development committee, including five Charlesview residents, to discuss the complex’s future.

But the owners insisted that the building’s fate would rest with them alone.

“This development committee is a great idea but the ultimate decision goes to the owners,” Debby Giovanditto, chair of the Charlesview Resident Organization, told the residents yesterday.

Josephine Fiorentino, the president of the Charlesview Board of Directors, which owns the complex, would not comment for this story. She did not attend the meeting.

In an interview before the meeting, Giovanditto said that no agreement with Harvard could be completed if the owners did not involve tenants in the negotiation process.

“It’s not going to be closed at all if the owner’s board doesn’t smarten up,” she said. “We don’t want anything unreasonable. They’re trying to pacify us.”

Jeffrey A. Purcell, an alum of the Harvard Law School who works at the Greater Boston Legal Services, is representing the residents. He said that because Charlesview is subsidized low-income housing, relocating its tenants requires approval from the city and the Housing and Urban Development Department.

“Everything that happens has to be signed off by a zillion people,” he told the residents. “If tenants are not at the table, it’s not going to happen.”

And William Horne, who has lived at Charlesview for 31 years and who serves on the development committee, said that tenants had not been kept out of the loop.

“Their input has been involved,” he said after the meeting, during which he engaged Purcell in a shouting match. “Nothing has been decided.”

After the meeting, several other tenants said that they were not opposed to moving, as long as they could have a say in what their new homes would look like.

“If we move, we want accessibility to transportation,” said Harry Cohen, who has lived at Charlesview for 20 years.

Cohen said that it might be more cost effective to build a new complex elsewhere than to renovate the gray buildings, constructed in the late 1960s.

The University has been negotiating with the Charlesview’s owners for about two years.

In spite of complaints from residents, Harvard Director of Community Relations Kevin McCluskey ’76, who did not attend last night’s meeting, said that past negotiations with the Charlesview’s owners had been constructive.

“These things take time,” he said. “Just the nature of it. I think there’s been a positive tone with these discussions.”

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.