A River Runs Through It

Prominent University and city officials crowd into Cambridge Mayor Anthony D. Galluccio’s spacious office in City Hall on an early afternoon in May, awaiting the announcement of Harvard’s $1 million investment in the Cambridge-Harvard Summer Academy, a joint effort to improve summer school options in the city.

“This is a great day of celebration for us,” Galluccio says, as University President Neil L. Rudenstine looks on. “A comprehensive summer school is something we’ve talked about for a long time.”

Despite veiled references to strained relations throughout the ceremony, the summer school partnership stands as one of the brighter moments in relations between Cambridge and Harvard in the last several years.

But on the same day, residents in the nearby suburb of Watertown are up in arms against the University’s recent acquisition of 30 acres of land in their city.

More than 100 residents—as well as their elementary school-aged children—join with Watertown politicians, loudly voicing their fear that the city will lose long-awaited property taxes needed for funding city services and the town’s education system. The rally blasts the tax-exempt University for not making higher payments to the town.

“Harvard is a schoolyard bully, but instead of asking for our milk money, they are asking us to hand over our children’s education,” Mass. State representative Steven A. Tolman tells the crowd. “They are asking us to hand over our town’s future.”

The day’s two events show the roller-coaster ride that Harvard’s relations with its host cities have taken on a yearly, monthly, and sometimes even daily basis, as the University goes from pushing its own development interests to patching up community relations disasters to trying to build partnerships.

And now, with the University at a crossroads in development—exhausting available resources in Cambridge while laying the groundwork for greater expansion in Allston—how Harvard deals with its neighbors has become central to the University’s interests, something beyond mere altruism.

“Obviously we have decided that getting the University more involved in our settings in a constructive way is in the self-interest of the University,” says Paul S. Grogan, the current vice president of government, community and public affairs for Harvard.

The University’s purchase of more than 130 acres of land in Allston and Watertown over the last decade stretch Harvard’s expansion plans far beyond the boundaries of Cambridge, creating even more complicated community relations issues for the 21st century, as Harvard tries to balance its relationship with all three host cities.

But even as Harvard attempts to smooth relations with all of its neighbors—often using financial leverage and political ties while pushing its own development agenda—some residents and city officials continue to make a public display of opposing the University, putting up roadblocks to any action Harvard takes that they perceive as a threat to their communities.

So as Harvard’s neighbors try to protect their own interests, weary and untrusting of an overbearing and encroaching University, Harvard officials are often left shaking their heads, wondering what will come next.

The Loyal Opposition

Much of the tension that the University faces in regards to its development proposals comes from residents adamantly opposed to any Harvard expansion into their neighborhoods.

“Harvard owns too much, and Harvard develops too much,” says resident Greg Keating. “I don’t see why they have to put their Crimson stamp everywhere.”

Mary H. Power, Harvard’s senior director of community relations, says she recognizes how the desire to develop directly near neighborhoods can hurt relations.

“The interaction between town and gown a lot of times can create tension,” Power says. “Neighbors sometimes wish buildings were more residential and we want those buildings to be for institutional use.”

Recently, the Cambridge Riverside neighborhood has been the most vocal—and the most effective—in blocking University initiatives, as a core group of residents uses the past to direct their opinions against Harvard.

“They have a history of dishonesty,” says Riverside resident Cob Carlson, citing Harvard’s purchase of residential leases in the early 1970’s so that they could construct Peabody Terrace and Mather House as examples of the first strains in relations between Harvard and the Riverside community. “Their lip service is that ‘we care.’”

So when Harvard proposed building a new modern art museum along the Charles River at the current site of the Mahoney’s Garden Center, many residents were adamantly opposed, saying that any Harvard building would block access to the river and overextend Harvard into their neighborhood.

“Everyone is concerned about quality of life issues,” Carlson says. “They’re taking away the sun and the sky and our neighborhood. They just keep chipping away at it. It’s about how our lives are impacted on day-to-day basis.”

Because of their concerns, a group of residents joined to sign the Loose Petition, calling for an 18-month moratorium on development in the Riverside neighborhood. When the Cambridge City Council passed the petition last fall, Harvard’s museum plans were effectively halted.

The moratorium showed Harvard officials that resident interests could unite to block Harvard’s plans.

“History has proven that people can get 20 signatures on a petition, and the next thing you know you have a moratorium or a down-zoning that will stop you cold in your tracks,” says Travis McCready, Harvard’s director of community relations for Cambridge.

And as shown through the Loose Moratorium, the political activism known of Cambridge residents sometimes goes against what the University considers productive community relations.

“Cambridge is a great city, where everything’s all about community activism and participation,” McCready says. “[But] it’s frustrating sometimes that there are people who want to be activists and are not always tempered by reason.”

City Hall vs. Mass. Hall

While active residents are often the ones who act to halt Harvard development, local officials sometimes use Harvard as a political target—attacks that Harvard seems incapable of preventing or dealing with effectively.

Grogan and Power say Harvard’s position as a large, well-known University with an easily targeted $19 billion endowment makes it easy to use as a political punching bag.

“As a lightning rod, Harvard draws a lot of attention from all sorts of individuals and groups,” Power says. “People see a lot of money and they are nervous about what Harvard will do.”

“The University is a fat target,” Grogan adds.

The University’s recent purchase of the 30-acre Arsenal complex as potential “swing-space” for moving offices during its development in Allston has brought city politics to the forefront in Watertown. Politicians in the town have criticized Harvard for not offering higher payment in-lieu-of taxes to Watertown to offset loss of property taxes caused by Harvard’s non-profit status.

“This is a huge overreach of their purported tax exempt status,” said Watertown Town Manager Michael Driscoll at a rally against Harvard three weeks ago. “To take this action will cripple the financial stability of this community.”

Driscoll says the property would have generated $4.8 million per year in property tax revenue if Harvard had not purchased it and says the University’s payment should at least equal that amount.

“We’ve waited over 200 years to bring this property onto our tax base,” Driscoll says. “All we want is for Harvard to pay its fair share. No more, no less.”

According to Watertown officials, the loss of tax revenue will hurt Watertown schools the most, since the school budget is funded through property taxes.

“Any decrease is our tax base will amount to a decrease in our school’s budget,” says Watertown school committee chair Anthony P. Paolillo.

And just as in Riverside, history plays a major part in the battle in Watertown, as residents feel they are entitled to receive more from the land after investing $100 million of federal, state and local money to clean toxic waste from the property, allowing it to be developed into a home for Internet and consulting firms over the last several years.

“We put $100 million into this site to clean and ready it for economic development,” says Mark E. Boyle, Watertown’s director of planning and development.

Harvard has currently offered sliding scale payments of $2.7 million for 20 years—an offer that Watertown has rejected as too low, leading them to file a home rule petition with the Mass. state legislature calling for full tax payments.

Watertown officials also want a permanent agreement, instead of one that ends after 20 years.

University officials say they are still working to form a payment agreement but say that a permanent agreement is not likely.

“We want the right to renegotiate after some interval,” Grogan says. “Circumstances do change.”

And while University officials say they understand Watertown concerns, Grogan points out that Harvard technically doesn’t have to pay the town anything.

“We’re letting go an unassailable right,” Grogan says of Harvard’s willingness to make payments in lieu of taxes, even though it has tax exemption.

Grogan says public attacks have merely weakened relations between the University and Watertown, and public comments by city officials to incite citizens do not reflect the discussions going on behind-the-scenes.

“The town officials are trying to leverage us with a terror campaign,” Grogan says. “They’re using this mythological idea that we’ll bankrupt them to frighten innocent citizens. It’s disgraceful.”

University spokesperson Joe Wrinn, who has been verbally attacked by Watertown officials for calling the town’s actions “continued theatrics,” echoed Grogan’s stance.

“To bus in children and elderly people and tell them that Harvard will destroy their lives is totally ridiculous,” Wrinn said after the Watertown rally, in which children lined the streets holding signs criticizing Harvard.

And while Grogan says the public stance by Watertown officials against the University will not change ongoing negotiations, he says he does believe that Watertown residents have been convinced that Harvard will have a negative impact on their community.

“We’re not well known in Watertown,” Grogan adds. “There’s a concern about what might be an overnight presence of the University in Watertown. People don’t know what to think.”

But he says creating public opposition to Harvard will not affect the University’s plans.

“We don’t want to hurt the town, but they can’t prevent us from coming in,” Grogan says.

Politics as Usual

While Watertown is a newer community relations issue for the University, local political battles have long characterized Harvard’s relationship with Cambridge, where the City Council in the last several years has often shown very vocal opposition to development initiatives by the University.

Tensions were at their highest last year when new council members made public threats linking Harvard’s development projects to its failure to pass a living wage, an issue the council has supported.

“If Harvard wants to build a new building and comes to the City Council, all nine of us will say, ‘Implement a living wage, and we’ll talk,’” said first-term councillor Jim Braude at a rally last April.

But Harvard officials maintain that the vocal stance of councillors does not reflect the tenor of Harvard’s relationship with Cambridge as a whole.

“It’s sometimes necessary to make a distinction between relations with Cambridge and relations with the Cambridge City Council,” Grogan says. “There is a dynamic in Cambridge where a lot of negativity towards universities surfaces in the city council, but that is not really evident to the broader population.”

Grogan says that when he first arrived at Harvard in January 1999, he commissioned a professional poll asking questions relating to the University’s presence in Cambridge. The poll found that Harvard had an 85 percent favorability rating among city residents.

But Grogan says that positive attitude towards Harvard was not reflected in Cambridge City Council meetings.

“If you confined your research to that single source, you would conclude that Harvard was a kind of plague that descended on the city that caused all sorts of awful things to go on,” Grogan says.

Despite the council’s vocal stance, Grogan says the University does not let the council dominate Harvard’s community relations efforts.

“In some ways, the task of community relations in Boston and Cambridge is to balance somehow what overall seems to be a lot of good feelings about the University, with the political dynamic which can be really different,” Grogan says.

“I think it’s apparent to leaders in Cambridge, particularly those not in elected office, that the University is doing a lot for the city, and is interested in doing a lot more,” Grogan adds.

The Great Divide

But while community relations with Cambridge seem to constantly go through up and down phases, relations with Boston have never been better.

The University was chastised four years ago for its secretive purchase of 52 acres of land in Allston over the course of the last decade in which it used the name of a private developer to purchase land so that it would not be overcharged.

But through a process of increased disclosure combined with political maneuvering and efforts to build community partnerships, the University has made amends for its actions, setting the course for the future of development across the Charles River.

“I would say that things in Boston are in great shape,” Grogan says.

The situation in Boston and Allston differs fundamentally from the course of relations in Cambridge. The nature of development and government institutions has elicited different reactions in each host community.

Because only a few undeveloped areas remain in Cambridge, development projects are done in a more piecemeal fashion, as the University seeks to transform its remaining holdings on the edges of the campus into University-used spaces.

“What we’re doing in Cambridge is completing the campus,” Power says. “There’s an opportunity to transform certain remaining areas into academic uses and facilities.”

But this piecemeal development often causes individual communities to react to each of Harvard’s initiatives.

“For Cambridge where space is rather limited, this development means more complicated issues,” Rudenstine says. “Sometimes there are genuine misperceptions and sometimes genuine differences.”

“People get anxious, worried and occasionally lose their temper,” Rudenstine adds of reactions to Harvard’s development proposals in Cambridge.

In contrast, the University has taken a broad approach regarding Allston development, following a city-required institutional master plan to develop the entire site.

Since each development proposal in Allston will be part of a larger plan of development for the entire area, Harvard receives less criticism from residents and government officials than in Cambridge.

“Development in Boston won’t go through the same multi-layered scrutiny that it would in Cambridge,” Power says.

And because Allston is just one centralized area of future development, Power also says the residents in Allston are easier to deal with.

“In Cambridge we have to strategically manage different groups, while in Allston there’s basically just one group,” Power says. “While there are different interests, it’s one neighborhood.”

The residents in Allston are also more open to development of their neighborhood, hoping the University will revitalize their surroundings, both physically and economically.

“In Allston, neighbors want to see some transformative change,” says Kathy Spiegelman, director of Harvard Planning and Real Estate (HPRE). “Growth and development isn’t as welcomed in Cambridge as it is in Allston.”

Cambridge and Boston’s differing political systems force the University to deal with its host communities differently as well, University officials say.

Grogan says the Boston political system—which features a strong mayor as opposed to Cambridge’s weak mayor and proportional representation system—has made it easier for the University to work with Boston to push forward development plans and partnerships.

“There’s more of an incentive to seek compromise and reconcile differences in Boston,” Grogan says. “A strong mayor has to do that.”

Because of the weak mayor system in Cambridge, Grogan says Cambridge “has no comparable figure” to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, allowing Cambridge councillors to attack the University at will instead of forging compromise through a strong leader.

But while Galluccio acknowledges that the Cambridge council role is more fragmented, he downplays the differences between the forms of government.

“There are unique challenges to different forms of government,” Galluccio says. “But I think that blaming problems on the form of government is over-generalizing analysis bordering on a cop-out.”

The Cold Shoulder

The turnaround in relations with Boston occurred shortly after Grogan’s arrival to Harvard, leading some to charge that Grogan has been able to use his political ties in Boston to push the University’s future development interests across the river, while putting less emphasis on Cambridge.

Grogan is good friends with Menino and worked in various capacities in Boston government since the early 1980’s before coming to Harvard.

“It’s clear as day that Grogan’s influence and experience in Boston city government was used to pave the way for their development across the river,” resident Cob Carlson says. “He was a hired gun who did his job.”

Grogan does not deny that his political ties have been an asset to him, saying his relations with Boston have helped get Harvard’s future development plans up and running.

“It’s no secret that the University is going to be expanding into Boston, so relations needed to be developed rapidly,” Grogan says. “I’m very pleased with the progress we’ve made. Now expansion can proceed in a way that benefits the city and the neighborhoods as well as the University.”

Harvard’s recent investment of $5 million over five years to increase and improve afterschool offerings in Boston has merely solidified the University’s strong position in Boston.

“They’re really stepping up to the plate to help improve their neighborhood,” Menino said in an interview after the afterschool partnership was announced in March. “Harvard and Boston have had a good relationship over the last few years, and we want to continue that and build on that.”

But as Harvard turns its eye to Boston, some in Cambridge have felt left out in the cold, and relations with the city at times seemed to have reached a point that even positive events are clouded by conflict.

Harvard’s announcement of the afterschool partnership with Boston, for instance, left Cambridge officials wondering why they were left out.

Cambridge had been a joint partner with Boston and Harvard in the 20/20/2000 housing initiative of November 1999, a popular and successful agreement that provided $20 million over 20 years from the University towards funding affordable housing loans.

Unlike that partnership, no Cambridge officials were even informed of the afterschool partnership until the day of the announcement.

“I can’t fathom how anyone could sign off on contributing $5 million to Boston without understanding how that would make Cambridge feel,” Galluccio says. “Leaving us out of the loop was a major setback to our relations.”

Harvard’s plans for a $100,000 investment in Cambridge summer school programs in the same week fell well short of expectations established by the Boston commitment, leading Cambridge officials to blast Harvard for ignoring their host city.

The council passed a strongly worded order expressing their “extreme disappointment in Harvard for not making a public commitment to equitable funding to Cambridge public schools,” and Galluccio personally wrote a letter to Rudenstine saying he was “very unclear about the current relationship between Harvard and the City of Cambridge.”

Only the recent announcement of a $1 million investment by Harvard in Cambridge’s summer school program was able to alleviate some of the tension within Cambridge.

Harvard officials say that the situation over the separate school announcements was merely a misunderstanding clouded by poor timing, and that it did not show any concerted effort to leave Cambridge out—despite the fact that Grogan spoke with Galluccio the day before the Boston announcement, and did not mention the planned afterschool partnership.

“We had an unfortunate communication problem,” Grogan says. “What we always intended was the development of an education partnership with Cambridge.”

Like a Good Neighbor?

But city officials and residents say that the tensions over the afterschool program show the inherent problem with the University in its dealings regarding development: elusive plans and hidden agendas keep the University from forming any basis of trust.

“Why not be direct?” Cambridge resident Carlson asks. “They don’t understand that’s why people are weary of them.”

A comfort level has been nearly impossible for Harvard to achieve on many recent projects, with residents opposing everything from the surface to the purpose of buildings.

Along with the Riverside museum proposal, the Center for Government and International Studies—formerly known as the Knafel Center—featured Cambridge residents adamantly opposed to Harvard development near their neighborhood.

The project faced nearly four years of opposition that forced two redesigns before being approved by the Cambridge Planning Board three weeks ago.

While University officials feel that the process did take too long, they say that community concerns have been addressed through the approval process, with Cambridge City Council approval as the last step.

“We’ve tried to be thoughtful, responsive and patient in response to community needs,” Rudenstine says.

McCready says that an open process has been used on all projects recently, as the University tries to present plans early when they want to develop sites, while seeking community input as much as possible.

“All of these projects are in these folks neighborhoods, so it’s important that they feel comfortable with them,” McCready adds.

But while community initiatives such as the affordable housing or summer school funding deals may help smooth relations on the governmental level, residents directly opposed to University proposals don’t think the tradeoff is worth it.

“We’re concerned about the tradeoffs, where the University basically says, ‘Let us build this, and we’ll give you this,’” Carlson says.

“With these deals, residents end up on the short end,” Carlson adds. “You get lobsters for the developers and lollipops for the residents.”

Fundamentally, Harvard’s relations with its neighbors come down to trust, as fear of Harvard’s influence on its host cities keep relations from maintaining stable footing.

“There’s a lack of trust on one level that anything that’s done won’t be positive,” Power says. “We’re dealing with the history of a generation ago.”

“There are high standards set for Harvard,” HPRE’s Spiegelman adds. “It’s hard to make business and academic decisions that make everybody comfortable.”

But Harvard officials say that stereotypes of Harvard are often unfounded, and that any fears about the University should be put aside for the mutual benefit of both Harvard and its neighbors.

“The idea that Harvard is this elite, arrogant, self-regarding institution is invoked sometimes, but it’s a cartoon of the situation at this point,” Grogan says. “Despite the periodic outbursts, I think in general, we manage to have a productive relationship and get a lot of things done.”

Rudenstine agrees, saying that while problems exist, a continued dialogue and understanding between Harvard and its neighbors independent of politics is the only way to allow productive relations to form and continue.

“There are certainly a lot of channels open now,” Rudenstine says. “There’s always been the possibility of getting dialogue going, and most of the problems that happen are solvable.”

And Galluccio says that the city of Cambridge—no matter what is said in public—also realizes that the dialogue must continue.

“Both sides realize that turning our backs to each other and walking away doesn’t accomplish anything,” Galluccio says. “I think that a majority of residents and councillors would like to see Cambridge and Harvard working together.”

But as residents and city officials have shown, if Harvard does anything to alienate itself from community desires, no matter what they do to patch relations, it will face a continually uphill battle.

—Staff writer Imtiyaz H. Delawala can be reached at delawala@fas.harvard.edu.