Charlesview Tenants Want Role in Deal

Tenants of the Charlesview housing complex—located on a lynchpin property at the center of Harvard’s future Allston campus—want to be at the table for any land-swap negotiations between the University and the building’s board of directors, they said at a meeting last week.

This December, the Charlesview board privately told residents they were interested in meeting with Harvard representatives to discuss relocating the building. Just weeks ago, the board made their intentions to negotiate public.

The announcement ended years of rumors about Harvard’s potential interest in the property that had left residents fearful of losing their homes.

Although the board’s announcement ended this anxious uncertainty, it stoked other concerns about how active a role the residents would play in future talks, said six-year resident Vince Anzalone. He helped form a new tenants’ association to organize residents’ interests in anticipation of Harvard-Charlesview negotiations.

“If they’re talking to Harvard, that’s fine and dandy, but I’d rather be doing it myself,” he said at a tenants’ association meeting of about 20 Charlesview residents last Wednesday. “If not I, and all of us, are left up to our very active imaginations.”

Located at the intersection of Western Avenue and North Allston Streets, near Harvard Business School and the athletic fields, the 40-year-old, dilapidated housing complex lies on a piece of real estate key to the University’s future development.

It is at the heart of Harvard’s holdings, at a crossing envisioned by some planners as the site of a future “Allston Square.”

Currently, Harvard officials are in the midst of planning a massive campus development in Charlesview’s backyard. Top scenarios include moving a cluster of graduate schools or creating a science city on the formerly-industrial land.

A deal between Harvard and Charlesview—long rumored in the community— could be advantageous to both sides, as long as Harvard respected Charlesview’s and Allston’s need for affordable housing, said Brian Golden, the Allston area’s state representative, in an interview after the meeting.

“If that site is acquired, it will only be done because lots of different interests have been addressed. The first is to make sure that the individuals who live in those units do not lose housing, and …that the affordable housing component remains permanent,” he said. “And that’s the bare minimum. The other question is: How much more will the University do?”

In December, the Charlesview board told tenants that a deal would only happen if the University arranged for a new complex in the general vicinity of the current one, in the same “townhouse-style” arrangement and with the same number of apartments that Charlesview currently has.

Debbie Giovanditto, the association’s president, expressed hope that residents would play an active part in developing plans for a “Charlesview II.”

“If we can form a strong association, Harvard can come in and ask us what we need and what we want,” she said in response to tenants’ calls for a slew of possible amenities in a new complex, ranging from better parking and new washing machines to even making Charlesview II larger than Charlesview I, which has 213 apartments.

“We need to make sure we’re loud enough and wise enough to make [a land swap] beneficial to us,” she said. She added that the tenants hope to meet soon with representatives of the Boston Redevelopment Authority—the agency which oversees all building in Boston—to discuss tactics for making their voices heard during Harvard-Charlesview negotiations.

Kevin McCluskey, Harvard’s senior director of community relations for Boston, said he believed the board has been straightforward with residents about the possibility of making a deal with the University.

“It’s really important that the board has done a good job of coming right out with this to folks and saying that there’s no need to be concerned here,” he said. “The [deal] would begin with the premise that, if this works out—and that’s a big if—these folks will still be a part of the affordable Charlesview community,” said McCluskey.

Molding the Future

While huge possibilities loom on the horizon, in the meantime Charlesview residents are struggling with a wide variety of problems, ranging from mold to rising rents.

Today the development, which is owned by four area churches and synagogues, is riddled with many structural problems, including leaky roofs, moldy walls and a foundation that is settling into the ground.

A recent proposal by the board to make significant repairs on the building has elicited mostly ambivalence from residents, who have lived with the problems for years and who would have to bear the financial brunt of any renovations.

Nevertheless the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which partly regulates the complex and subsidizes the rents of some of its low-income residents, has recently begun to test mold found in more than one-third of the complex’s apartments, according to residents.

If the mold is found to be a health hazard, the cost of removing it could be about $3.5 million—a price which would push rents up by 68 percent, the board told residents, according to Giovanditto. Such a dramatic increase would jeopardize those mid-income residents whose rents are not government-subsidized, and who make up the majority of Charlesview residents.

Charlesview Board member Lawrence Fiorentino said that while the rent for low-income tenants would remain affordable, prices for tenants of higher income levels will likely rise.

“There are some market rate people, and that’s a horse of a different color,” he said. “Not that we’re trying to displace them obviously, but we have to deal with the laws and regulations from HUD.”

Giovanditto said she was upset that the board has not expressed interest in looking elsewhere for renovation funds.

“There are a lot of grant programs out there, and all it takes is commitment. The owners keep on backing off from commitment,” she said. “This will displace people.”

If the mold proves to be harmless, residents agreed that a deal with Harvard would make expensive renovations of the property unnecessary.

“The tenants association doesn’t have a problem fixing things, but if the land swap with Harvard goes through, is it worth pouring $3 million into this place?” asked Giovanditto. “Considering what the [market-rate] tenants will have to pay, can you live with the mold for another year or two?”

Balancing visions of leaky ceilings and broken washing machines with the possibility of brand-new apartments in their heads, tenants who attended last Wednesday’s meeting seemed generally warm to the idea of moving.

But they weren’t without skepticism over the building’s board of directors and the process of arranging a deal with Harvard.

“[Board president] Josephine Fiorentino said that a new Charlesview building would be in a good location,” resident Lynn Cohen said at the meeting. “Well, maybe its good to her, but it may not be good for us.”

Tenants have developed a discernable mood of distrust toward the board, which they believe has intentionally kept them in the dark on a number of issues.

“For a while, we thought people were being taking advantage of by the board,” said Giovanditto. “We want to keep this [tenants’ association] loud so [residents] are aware of what’s going on here and don’t get shafted.”

Lawrence Fiorentino, Josephine’s son, defended the board in a January interview, saying that they have always communicated clearly with their residents.

“We have meetings once a month with the tenants, where they can ask questions and we will give them straight forward answers,” said Fiorentino. “We are very upfront, very forthright.”

But with only preliminary information, and in a neighborhood fearful of the gentrification that can come with university expansion, some residents say they still consider the board and Harvard guilty until proven innocent.

“I have nothing against Harvard. Harvard could be a saint for Charlesview,” Anzalone said. “But until we sit in on these meetings, we have to think of them as the bad guy.”

Harry Cohen, Lynn’s husband, who stressed the need to better organize tenants’ demands and desires, took a more peaceful approach to the University.

“We don’t want any confrontation. We just want to be part of the process.”

—Staff writer Alex L. Pasternack can be reached at apastern@fas.harvard.edu.