8 Plympton

board ignored at its February 17 meetings.

Cohn said Harvard could be required to rebate the entire overcharge because in a 1979 case when a board error resulted in real being calculated too low tenants had been forced to pay the full difference retroactivity.

Harvard Attorney Daniel Plover said that if the board simply affirmed its February decision. "you would be cutting the baby in half"

The rent board decided to take the case under advisement for at least one week before issuing a final ruling.

Polvere said a "Solomon like" decision to split the disputed rent difference in half only for future charges would be a "method to very quietly leave the problem behind"

But one tenant reformed to Plovers that such a situation would "also leave our money behind."

In a memorandum to the rent board. Polvere stated that reconsideration of the earlier decision would open "a Pandora's box out of which would fly many other petitions to reopen cases."

Part of the difficulty in calculating rents at the Plympton St. building arose because the structure contains commercial as well as residential housing.

Polvere said Harvard owns about 12 other mixed-use buildings, and tenants said that Harvard may concerned about making refunds to residents in those other apartments.

"I don't want to be before the board on cases such as these other." Polvere said, referring to Harvard's other mixed-use properties

Polvere presented evidence indicating that the board miscalculated six other Harvard rent adjustments. Those errors resulted in rents being calculated too low, and Harvard Real Estate officials brought them to the board's attention after about four months, Polvere's letter states.

Mike Turk, a representative of the Harvard Tenants' Union, told the board last night that Polvere's evidence shows that Harvard analyzed all of the rent changes "very closely."

"Harvard not only should have known" about the Plympton St overcharges. Turk said, "but they did know."

Harvard collected the mistaken Plympton St rents--which too effect in January 1981 for about 14 months before tenant Anne Brinton complained to the rent board.

In the report, Hearing Examiner Ira Wallach stated that Harvard "knew or reasonably should have known" about the error and corrected it.