Allston residents blast Harvard officials
Construction pace angers community
Harvard University officials attempted to placate Allston residents at a standing-room-only community meeting last night by reiterating the school's commitment to the neighborhood despite an expected delay in expanding its campus across the Charles River.
The largely hostile crowd accused Harvard of sucking the life out of a neighborhood now littered with empty university-owned storefronts, and implored the school to impose a moratorium on buying property until it completes a state-of-the-art science complex originally slated to open in 2011.
The university, struggling to cope as its endowment plummets amid the recession, announced last week that it will probably slow, or even halt, construction of the science complex after the foundation work is done later this year.
That news prompted more than 100 community members to pour into the Honan Library for the regular meeting of the Harvard-Allston Task Force. They fired questions at Harvard officials about the future of the neighborhood. State and local politicians, including mayoral candidates Michael Flaherty, Sam Yoon, and Kevin McCrea, flanked the crowd.
"You shouldn't be able to land-bank in our city until you develop what you currently own," said Flaherty, to audience applause.
Chris Gordon, chief operating officer of Harvard's Allston Development Group, said the university could not guarantee it would not add more land to the more than 350 acres it owns in Allston. But he acknowledged that Harvard should work harder to rent out its properties.
"There's definitely more that can be leased out," Gordon said. "Especially now, we can probably be even more aggressive about it."
Allston resident Molly Adelstein compared Allston's relationship with Harvard to a romantic partnership gone awry. She accused Harvard of "wining and dining" Allston, earning residents' trust - then leaving them in the lurch. She called for a breakup and "reparations" to the community.
"Our relationship with Harvard is an abusive one," Adelstein said. "Harvard has shown that it can slap us around."
Gordon, who took most of the heat during the two-hour meeting, assured residents that within the next year, Harvard would fulfill promises it had made to the community. The approximately $25 million in negotiated community benefits ranges from new parks and landscaping to an education complex for local children to receive mentoring from Harvard students and for adults to learn workforce skills.
"These aren't easy times," Gordon said after the meeting. "Our goal was to be as open as we could. Now, for better or for worse, we have a little more time to try and get this stuff right."
Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com. 