Harvard Frustrated by Riverside Project Progress

Harvard officials are openly frustrated with the results of five months of community meetings that they hoped would result in progress toward a new modern art museum on the Charles River.

Since its creation last April, a joint study committee—composed of representatives from Harvard, the City of Cambridge and residents of the Riverside neighborhood—has met seven times to explore issues of development on the southern edge of the University’s campus, addressing issues such as zoning and traffic impacts.

The study committee was formed after the Cambridge City Council passed an 18-month moratorium halting development in Riverside, the consequence of resident opposition to Harvard’s proposals for a modern art museum on the University-owned site currently occupied by the Mahoney’s Garden Center on Memorial Drive.

But after several committee meetings, Harvard officials are expressing serious concern about the direction of the commitee’s discussions, saying that community members have been unwilling to accept any of Harvard’s proposals, perhaps jeopardizing any hope for committee consensus.

“I am very concerned the process is moving forward in a direction that is likely to produce an outcome that Harvard cannot support,” says Mary H. Power, Harvard’s senior director of community relations. “My concern is that the community has not included the interests of Harvard as a property owner in the discussions.”

The committee last met on Wednesday, with many residents continuing to strongly oppose Harvard development in Riverside, with many adamant against the idea of an art museum that would block resident views of the Charles River.

“For me, there’s the reality of being stoned in by all this development,” says resident and commmittee member Bridget Dinsmore. “Harvard is supposed to be our neighbor. But what kind of neighbor would block your view of the river, and block out sunlight?”

Much of the animosity toward Harvard stems from the University’s construction of Mather House and Peabody Terrace in the 1970s, two projects residents say tower over their small, residential neighborhood.

“Right now I feel like I’m living on Harvard’s campus,” says resident Saundra Graham, who chairs the study committee. “I think we have paid the price for Harvard’s institutional development.”

Because of the University’s negative history in the neighborhood, she says, residents will not easily give up on opposing Harvard’s development efforts.

“This is an emotional issue,” Graham says. “For a lot of us, this is Custer’s last stand.”

Harvard’s Director of Community Relations for Cambridge Travis McCready, who has served as Harvard’s representative on the committee, says Harvard understands resident concerns.

“This community feels unheard, and feels under siege,” McCready says.

But he says the degree of opposition to any Harvard proposals has effectively halted constructive discussion.

Committee meetings have recently centered around zoning plans for the area that McCready has called “draconian,” and unacceptable to Harvard’s future development proposals.

“It’s completely antithetical to progress, because they want us to turn back the clock to what Riverside used to be,” McCready says. “They’ve made the leap that any development in Riverside is unacceptable.”

Both Power and McCready say Harvard proposals have been flatly rejected simply because they represent further Harvard development in Riverside.

“A lot of the angst has to do with University development at all on this site,” McCready says. “It’s not what’s being built, how tall or how big. Harvard is the issue.”

No Compromise In Sight?

While Harvard officials say Riverside residents have been inflexible, residents say Harvard has not been willing to consider other options, such as building the museum on the University’s newly acquired land in Allston.

Residents have also suggested other uses that they say they would find acceptable for the Mahoney’s site, such as creating a public sculpture garden or turning over the land to the city in order to build affordable housing.

“For [Harvard] to give the Mahoney’s site to the community is nothing out of their pocket,” Riverside resident Joan Qualls-Harris says. “But the good faith it would create would be more beneficial than anything you could build there.”

But Harvard officials say that a museum is still the University’s main goal.

“My interest is in first exploring options that are in line with Harvard’s interests as a property owner,” Power says.

But after seven meetings, it is unclear whether Harvard or Riverside residents will budge from their positions in time for the study committee to provide recommendations by the end of the moratorium this April that both sides will accept.

“I’m still not seeing anything happening here,” said one committee member during the opening discussions of Wednesday’s study committee meeting. “I don’t feel any sense of accomplishment.”

Residents have already filed a petition with the Cambridge City Council asking for an eight-month extention on the moratorium to allow more time for the study committee to meet.

“These are complex issues, and we’ve just touched the surface,” says M. David Lee, the lead outside consultant hired by the city for the study committee. “This is not something that can be done in a condensed period.”

But even if the extention is approved, further progress may be difficult, if not impossible, unless one of the two sides are willing to compromise on their positions.

“I can’t say whether there’s enough flexibility on either side,” Lee says. “That’s where we stand, but I hope that’s not where we end up.”

—Staff Writer Imtiyaz H. Delewala can be reached at delewala@fas.harvard.edu.