Neighbors Decry Allston Proposals

In mid-June, Harvard planners presented to a room of Allston residents the newest developments in the University’s project to build undergraduate houses along the river in Allston.

The community meeting marks the most recent of a string of delicate maneuverings by the University to win residents’ approval of its plans for expansion into their neighborhood.

In a question-and-answer period following the presentation, Allston residents continued to resist undergraduate housing in Allston, voicing fears that their own neighborhood community would be displaced by the arrival of Harvard undergraduates.

In previous meetings, residents have said “quite plainly” that they don’t want “animal house” to come to their neighborhood, Administrative Manager of Cooper Robertson & Partners David McGregor ’63 said at the June 15 meeting.

Cooper Robertson & Partners is th firm Harvard hired last June to help with institutional master planning.

In his introduction of the meeting, the Allston Initiative’s Director of Physical Planning Harris Band attempted to forestall community discontent, describing the plans that dominated discussion at the two-hour meeting as “recommendations that are very preliminary still.”

But Allston residents were quick to grill University officials on the timetable for Harvard’s plans to build along the river.

“Could you give me some idea of a time frame or a chronology?” one resident asked at the meeting.

Kathy Spiegelman, the University’s top Allston planner, did not present a final timeline for construction but said that science buildings would come first.

“The most urgent buildings have to do with our agenda for science and the desire on Harvard’s part to stay competitive in biomedical research,” she said.

In total, Harvard owns 341 acres of land in Allston, and leases much of it to local businesses.

Harvard’s expansion into Allston, which also includes the relocation of Graduate School of Education and the School of Public Health, will change the neighborhood significantly, converting asphalt into grassland and altering traffic routes to the river.

Cooper Robertson & Partners has proposed the creation of a tunnel for shuttles under the Charles River, a new bridge across the Charles, opening the Weeks Bridge to car traffic or expanding the corridor of JFK and North Harvard Streets.

At the meeting, residents also expressed concerns that Harvard’s presence in this area would greatly inhibit their own access to the river, destroying the current “democracy.”

“I’d hate for this to be considered a stretch of Harvard’s river,” said Margaret Van Deusen, deputy director of the Charles River Waterfront Society.

The chief deterrent for many of Harvard’s transportation plans—which also include the creation of a canal from the river into Allston—would be a high cost, which has yet to be determined.

Many of the designs also hinge on whether or not the University succeeds in its acquisition of the Charlesview Apartments, the low-income housing that is currently located in the middle of Harvard’s Allston holdings.

“That’s the boomerang,” McGregor said. “If Charlesview decides to relocate.”

In response to questions about other parts of Harvard’s acreage in Allston, McGregor said the University has neither developed plans for its encumbered land nor generated designs for specific buildings in those areas.

“I can’t predict for you exactly what the buildings are going to look like, but obviously you should continue to monitor the process,” McGregor told the community residents.

—Staff Writer Natalie I. Sherman can be reached at nsherman@fas.harvard.edu.