GSD Expansion Committee Head Attacks Corporation Housing Plan

Margaret Levi, chairman of the Graduate School of Design expansion committee, yesterday claimed that the new Corporation plan to build 1100 units of low and middle income housing in Boston provided "inadequate protection" for displaced community residents.

Responding to the Corporation announcement of the plan last Tuesday, Miss Levi named five areas where the program fell short of the Design School demands. The GSD demands were approved by the first Soldiers' Field mass meeting on April 14.

"The Corporation continues to make policy unilaterally," Miss Levi said in a written statement. "Decisions about developing specific sites cannot be merely 'discussed by Harvard representatives and members of the community involved,'" she added, quoting from the Corporation announcement.

Instead, Miss Levi recommended that faculty, students, administration, and members of the community should have an equal voice in expansion decisions.

"The Corporation is still not communicating fully and honestly with the University community," Miss Levi said. As evidence of the Corporation's bad faith, she cited the closed session in which Edward S. Gruson, assistant to the President for Community Affairs, presented the new plan.

She called for the Corporation to specify the amount of Harvard's financial commitment and its criterion for judging "low" and "middle" income ranges.