Homes on the Range: Harvard Hunts for Graduate Student Housing

As early as this summer, Harvard will begin block-renting apartments in communities where it traditionally does not have a significant presence-a strategy to help cope with the shortage of graduate student housing, one of the University's most pressing issues.

The pilot program-10-15 unit blocks in new areas like Dorchester and Watertown-marks a new approach to affiliated housing by the University. In the past, Harvard has not served as a middleman, and graduate housing has either been owned by the University or directly offered by outside landlords.

Harvard's graduate programs have been faulted in the past for driving up housing prices in Cambridge and Boston. Administrators say the new program is a step toward an eventual goal of offering Harvard-controlled housing to the majority of graduate students.

"We will rent [the apartments], control them, and then turn around and lease them to students," says Susan Keller, director of residential real estate for Harvard Planning and Real Estate (HPRE).

The number of units in the pilot program is not significant in the scope of the University's affiliated housing, but administrators say that if students respond well, the program will likely be greatly expanded.

And despite some concern over forcing graduate students to make longer commutes to campus, Harvard officials say they think the new housing offers students two basic benefits-a sense of community and lower rents.

BF: SEARCHING FOR BEDS

According to Keller, HPRE would like to eventually accommodate half of the University's graduate students in affiliated housing, keeping these students from entering the tight private real estate market. The current number is around 30 percent.

Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Peter T. Ellison sets the goal even higher for his students. He hopes to reach somewhere around 65 percent.

"One would like to say we have housing for everyone who wants it," he says.

But the University will not necessarily be able to offer this housing near to campus, an issue that Ellison says he views as problematic.

In a December Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting, Ellison said that currently "90 percent of graduate students live within one zip code" of the Yard and stressed the importance of maintaining a residential campus.

"It will be disastrous if graduate students are commuting from long distances," he says.

By being close, graduate students' involvement with the academic community is unrestricted-laboratories can be used at all hours and teaching fellows can meet students in the evening.

However, the current difficulty of finding nearby housing has made many administrators change their attitudes toward the acceptable length of commutes.

"We always thought of 20 minutes [to campus] as our threshold. Now we're thinking 30 minutes," says Sally H. Zeckhauser, Harvard's vice president for administration.

The housing areas that the University is investigating mainly lie along the Red Line, making them easily accessible by day, but posing some problems since the trains stop running at 1 a.m.

BF: WHAT'S TO GAIN?

Administrators behind the new pilot program see multiple benefits from the block-renting scheme.

First, they say, students will be living close to their peers and can benefit from a dorm-like community while still maintaining independent living quarters.

Second, by renting in bulk, Harvard may be able to secure discounted rates from landlords, on top of the cheaper rents these communities typically offer compared to Cambridge.

"We would hope to pass on any savings to students," Keller says.

And for the University, block-renting in these new communities is a way of working to help Cambridge and Boston officials as well.

"The mayor of Cambridge has expressed concern that Harvard students put pressure on the housing market," says Mary H. Power, Harvard's senior director of community relations.

Power says one important aspect of the pilot program is that it would only rent units that were unoccupied.

"We're not displacing tenants," she says.

Still, block-renting does take available units away from the community for future renting.

"That may be why it is a short-term strategy," Power says.

In the long-term, Harvard still looks to build more nearby housing for its graduate students-an apartment complex in Allston with over 300 beds is slated to open in fall 2003.

BF: A SHRINKING MARKET

Ellison points to a "shrinking market" in the Cambridge area, due to the conversion of rental properties to private ownership, as exacerbating the already-bad problem.

The number of mid-Cambridge rentals advertised through HPRE is down by around 40 percent over the last year, he says.

According to Keller, HPRE is looking outside of Cambridge because of restrictions like the Red Line Agreement, a contract the city negotiated in the 1960s to prevent Harvard from over-extending its residential campus. The contract said that Harvard would not build or purchase residential property in Cambridge outside of a closely delineated area.

Although the piece of paper has expired, Power says Harvard still honors the agreement.

"It continues to be an interest of ours to respect the wishes of the city," she says.

--Staff writer Zachary R. Heineman can be reached at heineman@fas.harvard.edu.