University Sells Boston Housing To Tenant Group

Harvard announced Wednesday that it would sell a low-income housing development it owns in Roxbury to the development's tenants' association for $66 million.

Harvard built the Riverway at Mission Park complex in 1976 after buying up large tracts of land in the neighborhood for the development of Brigham and Women's Hospital.

University officials admitted yesterday that the 13.5-acre complex's construction was accompanied by a neighborhood fight--as Roxbury residents protested Harvard moving in.

A press release said the complex's residents are mostly families and elderly people. According to the Boston Globe, all but eight apartments and townhouses of the complex's 775 units are financed by Section 8 housing subsidies from the federal government.

And so since its construction, the complex's tenants association, called the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard (RTH), has been trying to buy the property back.

According to the Boston Globe, last month the RTH secured a $48 million loan from the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency to pay off the outstanding mortgage, plus an additional $18 million in equity financing to purchase the property.

Harvard's Director of Community Relations, Kevin A. McCluskey '76, said the University has always intended to sell the property back to tenants.

"We wanted to have Mission Park be both owned and operated by Roxbury tenants of Harvard," McCluskey said. "This transaction allows us to complete that loop in a very positive fashion."

Harvard and RTH had been in negotiations about selling the property for several months.

"I think people are very happy that it is happening and that they are going to have control over their own community," said Robert Parks, RTH's executive director.

Both sides were eager to distance themselves from an article in yesterday's Globe, which played up tensions between tenants and Harvard.

"We've been working together very closely for 25 years. There was a fight in the beginning but that changed quickly to a partnership," he said.

McCluskey agreed, saying that there has not been any tension between the University and the tenants for quite a long time.

"To acnowledge the fact that there was some degree of tension in this process in the mid-70s is valid," he said. "The overwhelming focus .... should be about the cooperative relationship between Harvard and the tenants."

Ownership of the site has already been transferred, but a formal handover will take place next Tuesday at the complex, in a ceremony in which Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino will take part.

Wrinn said that Harvard's involvement in the area would continue.

"What we are disengaging from is the management of a housing project. We obviously are going to continue a committment to the area in a way that is appropriate," Wrinn said.