Harvard Square in Transition

A proposed zoning ordinance designed to regulate new construction in Harvard Square is receiving mixed reviews from local businesses and the University, and now awaits a public hearing before the Cambridge City Council.

The compromise zoning bill--which has been in the works for several years--imposes an 80-foot height limit on buildings and sets up a board to review proposals for major construction projects.

The zoning package, known as the Harvard Square Overlay District, also would loosen parking requirements and allow retail stores in some areas where they are now barred.

Under the city's current guidelines, real estate developers can construct buildings as high as 110 feet in the Square area.

Lacking Enthusiasm

"No one is overly enthusiastic, but everyone sort of grudgingly accepts that it's fair," said Jacqueline A. O'Neill, Harvard's associate vice president for state and community affairs.

"On process, we would commend the city for its slow and careful deliberations. On substance, I think the proposals are a very good compromise on what can be seen as competing interests in the Square," said O'Neill, spokesman for the Square's largest landowner.

Sore Spot

Seven years ago, Harvard challenged the original overlay district which was written by the city's development department. By filing a protest against the proposal, the University forced the city council to come up with seven votes, instead of six, to pass the legislation.

The initial proposal only garnered six votes in the city council, leaving Harvard Square real estate developers unsure of the city's building requirements since 1979.

"[The latest proposal] puts new and different controls on the Harvard Square area that still make development possible, but in the context of trying to preserve what is good about Harvard Square," O'Neill said yesterday.

A representative of the Cambridge Planning Board, which drafted the bill, said that the commisssion tried to include community groups in the drafting process, which has been going on for two years.

"We want to identify preservation as a major object for developers in Harvard Square...and develop regulation flexible enough to encourage good design," said Lester Barber, director of community planning. "We want to communicate with groups in Harvard Square to review development."

Local businessmen, whose expansion and development will be impacted the most by the zoning changes, generally said they were "reluctantly supportive" of the Overlay District.

"I think that it will allow for enough flexibility that the changes will be gradual rather than radical. We don't really want highrises all over the place," said Sally R. Alcorn, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association.

Alcorn, who said the zoning package was "the best we are going to get," would not state precisely the points of the bill with which the business community was unhappy.

Wild cards

Community activist groups, like the Bank Street Area Neighborhood Association and the Harvard Square Defense Fund, say they have not yet formulated their positions on the bill.

"I think it's a definite improvement on what's now in place," said R. Philip Dowds, member of the Bank Street neighborhood group, adding that not all community members support the bill.

"A lot of people are very anxious that what this whole process will turn out to be is just another giveaway to major developers," Dowds said yesterday. "Some people believe that the entire area does not need a whole lot of development of any kind."