Harvard’s Battle Over Riverside Reaches Council

After a three year struggle between Harvard and local activists over how high and how much the University can build near the Charles River, the battle reached its final stage this week when the decision was passed into the hands of nine local politicians.

But while the nine Cambridge city councillors could take six months to hammer out the final deal, the battle for the councillors’ votes is already heating up.

For months, neighborhood activists have bombarded the councillors with letters, phone calls and impassioned speeches at council meetings.

Now, they are threatening to make rezoning a crucial factor in the council elections this fall.

“We hope to make it an election issue,” said Alec Wysoker ’84, who lives in Riverside, the working-class neighborhood by the Charles which has been a hotbed of Harvard opposition. “We’re not against growth, but it has to be within the bounds set by the citizenry.”

Harvard has also begun its more conservative lobbying effort, starting with a letter to the council outlining the University’s case.

But the University will have a tough time pushing its case to a council which has long shown sympathy for Riverside’s cause.

Several of the councillors have already said they are supportive of Riverside, largely because the neighborhood is already home to Mather Tower and Peabody Terrace—two structures deeply-hated by local residents.

But at the same time, even some city councillors say that they consider the neighborhood’s demands unreasonable.

The fight at the council is shaping up as a struggle between the rights of a landowner and the rights of a neighborhood, with history—and an election—hanging overhead.

A Long, Strange Battle

The fight for the Riverside parcels—including the Memorial Drive plot currently rented by the Mahoney’s Garden Center and the Blackstone steam plant which Harvard recently bought—has dragged on for more than three years.

Early in 2000, Harvard announced plans to build a modern art museum on the Mahoney’s site, a project which met vehement neighborhood opposition. According to Riverside activist Cob Carlson, at an early meeting one resident declared, “If you build it, we’re going to bomb it.”

The neighborhood took their grievances to the city council and won a two-year development moratorium so that they could completely rewrite zoning for the neighborhood.

The Riverside Study Committee, composed of local residents and a Harvard representative, then spent more than a year hammering out their zoning plan, focusing mostly on University properties.

Last spring, the committee settled on a stringent set of regulations, including a drastic cut in permitted building height on the most controversial site, the Mahoney’s Garden Center plot—from 120’ to 24’.

Harvard gave up on the beleaguered art museum plan last summer, instead putting forward a plan for graduate student housing.

But the neighborhood’s recommendations met raised eyebrows from the planning board—a city-appointed group which approves all zoning plans—which spent seven months tweaking and relaxing the neighborhood’s recommendations.

This past fall, fearing that the planning board would weaken their proposal, the neighborhood submitted an untouched copy of the their zoning recommendations directly to the council.

Last week, the board wrapped up a moderate proposal—including a 45’ cap on the Mahoney’s site, with provisions for bargaining—which both Harvard and the neighborhood have decried as unfair.

“The restrictions make it infeasible for the University to develop its property,” said Mary H. Power, senior director of community relations for the University.

And Riverside activists are holding firm to their initial demands, saying the planning board is corrupt and inept.

Nine Votes

At Monday’s council meeting, several residents from Riverside stood up one after the other, urging councillors to immediately dismiss the planning board’s proposal.

No councillors declared unconditional support for either proposal at the meeting, but several councillors said this week they think the neighborhood’s petition has merit because it represents the people.

“The neighborhood has a particular vision as to how it should be and evolve,” said Councillor Kenneth E. Reeves ’72. “It would appear that the planning board hasn’t been able to listen closely to the neighborhood and, of course, Harvard’s performance is less than one could reasonably expect.”

Most of the councillors say they are struggling to balance business and development concerns with the needs of the residents.

Councillor Henrietta Davis said she recognizes the need for development on the Harvard sites—but hoped to find a middle ground with the neighborhood.

“The question now is how do we deal with these two proposals and move forward,” Davis said.

Some have already voiced strong support of some form of the Carlson petition, which is in essence designed to maintain the status quo—a small structure which primarily serves residents.

“What’s wrong with what’s there now?” questioned Councillor E. Denise Simmons, adding that she understands the dorm-filled neighborhood’s frustration with the “hootering and the hollering and the throwing of beverages” that comes with University housing.

“Harvard has to be a little less pervasive,” she added.

Reeves added Harvard’s other tall buildings in Riverside are enough of an imposition on the neighborhood, and pointed to University holdings across the river as a better site for future expansion.

Deep-seated bitterness about Peabody and Mather Towers in the late 1960s has hung over the zoning talks from the very beginning.

“I can still see the chains across the so-called open passages to the Charles River,” said Lawrence Adkins, a lifelong Riverside resident and president of the Riverside Neighborhood Association. “It’s reliving an old war.”

—Staff writer Alexandra N. Atiya can be reached at atiya@fas.harvard.edu.