Expansion Plans Explored

A day after Harvard and the city announced a major increase in the University’s voluntary payment to Cambridge, Harvard officials presented their annual report on expansion plans and land use to the city’s Planning Board last night.

Kathy A. Spiegelman, the University’s top planner, told the board she hoped “there isn’t much to surprise you” in the report, which met with muted reaction from board members and local residents—in contrast to the pointed questions that have greeted some of Harvard’s past presentations.

Spiegelman outlined the University’s plans for development in the next two to three years, including the expansion of Law School and science facilities in the North Yard area and the construction of new graduate student housing along the river. She said most of the recent construction has been residential as the University moves toward its goal of housing 50 percent of its graduate students.

The annual “town-gown report,” instituted in 1991, is designed to improve the relationship between Cambridge and its universities by providing a forum to discuss development plans.

Planning board member Larissa Brown alluded to Harvard’s tumultuous history with the board and praised the University’s recent efforts to improve communication, saying that this year’s report showed that “the process is getting more successful.”

Residents and board members have often pressured Harvard to provide a better sense of its long-term development plans rather than revealing building projects one at a time. But Spiegelman emphasized yesterday that the University’s physical expansion is driven by academic programs, which in turn have to respond flexibly to world events.

“It’s very challenging in a university to think of planning in a long-term basis,” she said.

Spiegelman touched on the University’s future development across the river in Allston, saying that it would affect Cambridge plans. But she again hesitated to be more specific, noting that much of the land would only become available in phases.

Spiegelman faced several questions from the board, including one about the conversion of Hilles Library into student activity space. She noted that “there’s a real shortage of student activity space.”

“At Harvard, everybody has an idea for a new club and wants to be a president,” she explained to laughter.

During the public questioning period, residents asked about the rumored expansion of the student population—which Spiegelman said is not growing—the re-negotiated annual payments to the city. (Please see related story, page A1.) One resident even expressed concern that Harvard might be developing “high-tech electronics that can be used to influence human behavior without people knowing it.”

The board told Spiegelman she could choose which questions to respond to, prompting muttered exclamations from the crowd, which nonetheless seemed largely satisfied with her responses.

MIT and Lesley University also presented their reports at the meeting, and Cambridge College submitted a report, but did not present.

—Staff writer Natalie I. Sherman can be reached at nsherman@fas.harvard.edu.