State Council Okays Hospital; Med School to Use New Site

The Massachusetts Public Health Council Tuesday approved with Harvard's blessing a $100 million hospital for Boston that has been in the works for nearly three years.

On the same day, the University's office of Government and Community Affairs released a three-page statement outlining Harvard's plans for development in the Mission Hill Community, the site of the hospital.

The 640-bed hospital will be a center for Harvard teaching and research, Donald C. Moulton, assistant vice president for Community Affairs, said yesterday.

Before the Public Health Council approved the project, Dr. Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Medical School, and other Harvard officials testified in its favor.

Approval of the 18-story Affiliated Hospital Center--which will be connected with the Peter Bent Brigham, the Robert Breck Brigham, and Boston Children's Hospitals--was delayed by community protest.

F. Stanton Deland, a member of the Mass. Public Health Council, said yesterday that original blueprints for the hospital called for the demolition of "between 25 and 30 homes."

The uproar that greeted these plans caused final drafts of the construction to limit the structure to what is now a parking lot for the Peter Bent Brigham, at the corner of Francis and Binney Streets in Boston.

No homes will have to be razed to accommodate the hospital, by current projections.

Robert S. Parks, who has been a community spokesman for the affected Mission Hill area, last night refused to comment on the approved construction. Members of the Harvard Tenants of Roxbury and of the Mission Hill Health. Movement were not available for response yesterday.

However, both Deland and Moulton said yesterday that tenant and community groups had been consulted and had agreed to the construction plans.

"We worked hard and cooperated with the neighborhood and they worked hard for us right down to the last day," Deland said.

In the separate Harvard statement, announced Tuesday, Moulton said that future Harvard construction will be confined to the area north of the residential community that lies southwest of the Med School.

The statement says that the addition of another academic building in the area would be confined to the non-residential district. Moulton also cited plans to "start an exterior rehabilitation program on most of the remaining wood frame houses," in a 13-acre site southwest of the Medical School.

"We're interested in having a vibrant neighborhood out of a spirit of neighborliness and in our own self-interest," Moulton added yesterday