I write on behalf of the neighbors of Harvard's proposed Law School expansion. I urge you not to grant Harvard its requested zoning relief until Harvard has met the neighborhood residents' concerns about this project.
As you know, this expansion project is massive, cumulating in a project of well over 200,000 square feet, hundreds of underground parking spaces and the actual moving of two sizeable structures from their current locations. As you are also no doubt aware, this project's impacts on its adjacent neighborhoods will be just as massive and, without carefully crafted mitigation and compensation agreements, could be disastrous for area residents.
Elsewhere in the City, I have seen firsthand how Harvard's construction projects impact its neighbors. I have seen windows flex in their frames from construction vibrations. I have seen cracked countertops and olive oil actually sloshing in its bottle. I have taken startlingly high decibel readings inside closed rooms (67 decibels) and even higher ones with the windows open (84 decibels) as Harvard's construction equipment worked next door. I have seen at least one significant tree that Harvard cut down, with Harvard's mitigation manager saying that Harvard had planned to do so all along even through the plans Harvard had submitted indicated otherwise. I have had constituents complain of diesel fumes, construction dust and unknown airborne particulate matter sifting into their homes. I have had area residents express concern over Harvard's unwillingness to let the affected public look at the health and safety records for construction projects across a fence from their own homes. I have seen huge construction trucks going down small residential streets and I have heard neighbors talk about cracked foundations, traffic snarls and idling engines.
These issues are just some of the construction impacts the neighbors of Harvard's Law School expansion project will have to deal with during this project. They understand Harvard's need to expand its Law School and few people doubt the benefits that Harvard, as an institution, brings to our City. Area residents understand that, when it is completed, this new Law School will be a significantly different, and bigger, neighbor than it was when they moved into the neighborhood. Perhaps most importantly, they understand that Harvard has no right to build this project as proposed without special zoning relief, relief that, by law, is supposed to be narrowly defined in the case of variances as requested tonight. The neighbors understand all of this, but they are willing to be supportive, despite the project's downsides, because they realize that some level of change, even change as massive as this, is inevitable.
What the neighbors don't understand is why Harvard is no longer talking to them. What the neighbors also don't understand is how Harvard can consider itself not bound by a 1991 zoning decision granting a variance to change the Holiday Inn into a Dorm as long as the foot print of the Dorm itself was not touched. As I understand it, Harvard's current plan requires it to chop off part of the Dorm in order to accommodate the proposed building locations. The problem this new plan presents is that, if Harvard is allowed to go through with it without addressing neighborhood concerns, it sends a signal to everyone- developers, residents, institutions and anyone else who might care- that agreements before City boards, to include the BZA, are only temporary things, to be thrown aside when no longer convenient. Unfortunately, if the public loses faith in the integrity of the decisions handed down by our Committees and Boards, we are likely to see far less negotiation and compromise and far more litigation and appeals because neighborhood advocates will think they cannot give an inch for fear of having their rights stripped away when someone comes up with a new plan a few years down the line. Such an outcome with have far-reaching detrimental impacts to all of us who care about our City.
Under these conditions, what the neighbors want, and what they more than deserve, is to be treated respectfully by Harvard and its representatives. They deserve to have an enforceable mitigation and compensation plan in place before Harvard gets any variance to carry out this expansion. They deserve to have a working and dependable line of communication with Harvard so that construction issues don't turn into construction nightmares, with attendant negative impacts not only on their daily lives but also on the value of their homes, which in many cases are a household's largest source of wealth.
In short, neighbors deserve an effective place at the table with Harvard and enforceable protections before the Board of Zoning Appeals grants Harvard any variances. I hope you will either table this matter until Harvard has met the neighborhoods' concerns or that you will deny Harvard's application, giving Harvard the opportunity to set up a proper system of communication, mitigation and compensation with area residents before starting the application process again.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this communication.
Thank you very much for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Craig Kelley
Cambridge City Council
6 St. Gerard Terrace
Cambridge, MA 02140
617-354-8353 (home)
617-349-4280 (Council office)