Harvard Calls Cambridge Home. Its Payments Should Show It.

When it comes to giving back to the community in which it resides, Harvard must pay its fair share.

Despite sitting on prime real estate in the center of Cambridge, Harvard might soon sour its relationship with the city. The fracas centers on Payment in Lieu of Taxes to Boston and Cambridge — or, in Harvard’s case, a lack of it.

The University has been frustratingly stingy in its dealings thus far. Instead of pinching pennies at the expense of local government, Harvard should increase its PILOT contributions.

Harvard is one of the largest landowners in Cambridge and its largest employer. Our students, faculty, and staff make daily use of city infrastructure — many call it home. As Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern put it, “Cambridge isn’t Cambridge without Harvard, and Harvard isn’t Harvard without Cambridge.”

Investment in Cambridge makes sense for everyone involved — Harvard affiliates benefit from the city just as much as the city benefits from us. Investing in PILOT payments ensures this mutually beneficial cycle continues to run unhindered.

PILOT programs provide wealthy, tax-exempt organizations like Harvard opportunities to give back to their communities. At their best, these programs can cement goodwill between a university and local government.

It appears Harvard prefers to view such agreements as protracted lessons in optics — pay as little as possible and obfuscate away the details. Instead of paying directly, Harvard counts many of its contributions in the form of obscurely defined “community benefits.”

Of course, many of these programs — like pro bono legal services and youth education programs — are valuable to community members. But they’re hardly a perfect substitute for perhaps the most valuable resource Harvard can offer municipal governments: cash.

On that front, the University has been sorely lacking — over the past 12 years, Harvard has failed to meet Boston’s preferred benchmark for PILOT contributions. In Cambridge, representatives are calling for an increase from the University’s current annual $4.7 million expenditure.

Such calls make sense given Harvard’s enormous financial success: The endowment has more than doubled over the past 20 years. In the same timeframe, Cambridge’s housing affordability crisis has worsened. We aren’t asking Harvard to open its coffers and throw in the kitchen sink — but good-faith engagement would go a long way.

As Harvard grows, it becomes an ever-more prominent presence in both Cambridge and nearby Allston. Indeed, Harvard now owns almost one-third of all land in Allston. Now more than ever, it should be looking for ways to strengthen its relationship with its neighbors. Increased PILOT payments — especially if allocated using democratic measures like participatory budgeting — could go a long way.

As Harvard renegotiates the terms of its PILOT agreement, we urge the administration to remember how much we benefit from our community.

After all, Harvard students are also Cambridge residents — the University should act like it.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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