Task Force Criticizes Interim Report

The Harvard Square Development Task Force's criticisms of the University's interim report on expansion reflect growing community discontent with the University.

The task force statement, released yesterday, said that the University's report is an inventory of existing facilities rather than a detailed plan of future construction.

The civic group also said the report is vague, since it lists potential development sites, but gives no estimates of the University's expansion needs.

The Planning Office released the interim report in June as a draft for the "long-range" of University development in Allston and Cambridge. It will be published sometime this winter.

Harvard prepared the report without first soliciting comment from Cambridge civic groups.

One source close to the Cambridge Civic Association, which responded to the report last month, said yesterday that the group "toned down" its statement.

He said the group backed off because it received assurances from Donald C. Moulton, assistant vice president for community affairs, that community concerns would be reflected in the final report.

"If not then I'd expect community groups to raise hell," he added.

Moulton said yesterday he has not yet decided what form the final report will take, adding that he is gathering information from both the community and departments of the University.

He specifically declined to comment on whether he had target figures for expansion and whether he would release then to the public.

Want More From Report

"People want the report to be more than it is," he said, noting that it is not specifically addressed to the community, like the Daly report of 1972.

But Moulton's continued equivocation on the specifics of expansion has angered the community. In the city council, Alfred E. Vellucci led a nearly successful attempt to subpoena Bok to explain the University's plans.

Moulton met boos and hisses from Aggasiz residents when he went before the council to oppose a rezoning that would restrict Harvard's development north of the Law School. Harvard lost that one, 6-3.

The environmental impact statement for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library will be out later this month, and Harvard and the community may clash head-on over the issue at public hearings.

Grand Illusion?

Moulton complained yesterday that residents believe Harvard has some "kind of grand design" which they keep in the drawer and pull out" when they plan to build.

Harvard may have no such secret plan, but the trouble in Cambridge is that too many residents, as Moulton acknowledged, believe that the University has one.