Tenants Seek Approval for Housing Plan

The Roxbury Tenants of Harvard will meet with Corporation officials this afternoon to discuss tenant proposals for relocation housing in the medical area.

This morning, a group of undergraduates will present a petition to President Pusey in support of the tenant proposals. Organizers of the petition claim that the statement has 1000 signatures.

Reply Requested

Robert S. Parks, president of the tenants' association, said last night that the tenants would ask Harvard to reply within two weeks to the proposals.

The proposals request that Harvard:

lease a ten- acre site in the medical area to the tenants for 50 years, at a rate of $1 per year, for construction of a tenant-controlled low-income housing project;

assist in obtaining federal financing for the project;

allow much of the adjoining area to remain a residential community with accompanying commercial and educational facilities.

The proposals provide for construction of at least 200 low-rise low-income apartments with a sufficient number of three and four-bedroom units to accommodate displaced tenants. It specifies areas for construction of medical institutions and includes plans for emergency access to hospitals.

Conference

Parks and John Sharatt, urban consultant to the tenants, will represent the tenants' association in conference with Albert L. Nickerson '33, Fellow of Harvard College, and Edward S. Gruson, assistant to President Pusey for Community Affairs. They will ask that Harvard continue to repair safety hazards in present apartments at no additional cost to affected tenants.

In a letter to the tenants' association at the beginning of March, Henry H. Cutler, Harvard's manager for Taxes, Insurance, and Real Estate, said that Harvard would initiate such repairs free of charge or rent increase. The University has since begun these repairs.

Cutler explained last night that repairs "over and beyond the requirements of safety" would be made in consultation with, and possibly at additional cost to, individual tenants.