Designing new Harvard neighborhoods

After years of planning and negotiation, a vision for North Allston's future is taking shape. In meetings with the Boston Redevelopment agency over the past several months, the neighborhood is starting to agree to an outline for how residents would like the see the streets and shopping areas of Allston evolve.

At a Community Wide Planning meeting for North Allston and Brighton earlier this month, city-hired consultants asked residents whether they could agree that they had reached consensus on improvements to the area's roads, open space, and shopping districts so that those plans could be moved forward.

Among these items were the planting of trees along neighborhood streets, creating public pedestrian- and bike-ways through Harvard's existing and proposed Allston Campus, and any other new developments, easing access to the parks along the Charles River, creating or improving neighborhood open space and access to any Harvard-created park areas, protecting neighborhoods from being replaced with dorms and college buildings, making Barry's Corner (the intersection of North Harvard Street and Western Avenue) more vibrant, and improving mass transit.

The Cecil Group, consultants hired by the Boston Redevelopment Agency, provided a checklist of areas of agreement about "what makes a great neighborhood" to roughly 45 residents who attended the meeting.

The goal of the planning process is to present Harvard with a clear idea of what the neighborhood wants and expects as the university develops its new campus. The university now owns much of the land north of the turnpike, but detailed plans for the new campus have not yet emerged.

Steven Cecil, founder of the urban planning and design firm, acknowledged there was still controversy about certain areas of the neighborhood and how they should be developed.

Chief among these is Brighton Mills, the now mostly-closed strip mall, once a rope factory, that is slated to be developed into affordable housing to replace the crumbling Charlesview Apartments now located at Barry's Corner.

"This area is central to the neighborhood," Cecil said at the meeting. "It lies between two residential areas, the Mass. Turnpike and the Charles."

A neighborhood group has already proposed a plan for the area, which includes 13 acres beyond what is currently slated for the Charlesview Apartments. Meanwhile, neighbors await revised plans for the apartment complex, which were promised for September. The private, nonprofit board of the Charlesview said earlier this summer that it would address neighborhood and BRA concerns about the density and height proposed in the initial plans, among other things.

Cecil said that the challenge planners faced at the Brighton Mills and the nearby Holton Street corridor was to find a development that would make enough money to warrant tearing down what is now there.

But residents quickly pointed out that Harvard's objectives in developing in Allston were not just about turning a profit on any particular block, but also about advancing the university's goals, which could include putting staff and faculty housing in nearby neighborhoods, keeping areas abutting its campus particularly livable and vibrant, and providing recreation and open space for students and faculty.

"You can't visualize the Allston neighborhood in a traditional market way," said Bruce Houghton of the Harvard Task Force. "You have to assume that this area is owned by a rich institution that would like a healthy and vibrant neighborhood for the benefit of its mission."

The BRA's Community Wide Planning process includes a Sept. 24 meeting on transportation with the Boston Transportation Department, the MBTA, and the Executive Office of Transportation and meetings in October and November. For a complete outline, visit www.cityofboston.gov/bra/ and follow the links to planning initiatives or call Carlos Montanez at 617-918-4442.