City Councilor at IOP Panel Asks for Harvard's Cooperation

Harvard must try harder to consult with and show consideration for the Cambridge community in housing and taxation. City Councilor David E. Sullivan told an Institute of Politics audience yesterday.

"I find that it is often very difficult to get Harvard to discuss this with us, and frankly I find tonight a good example of it." Sullivan said, referring to the University's refusal to send a representative to the panel to talk on Harvard-Cambridge relations.

Housing and taxation are becoming increasing problems in the relationship between the University and the city, Sullivan said. Cambridge is the fourth most densely populated city in the United States, with a vacancy rate of less than 1 per cent, and Harvard is aggravating this situation by converting more and more residential housing to non-residential use, Sullivan added.

"The city is the in the worst fiscal shape it has been in in its 350-year history, due to Proposition 2 1/2," Sullivan said.

About 55 per cent of Cambridge property is tax-exempt, much of it Harvard property, Sullivan said. Cutbacks resulting from Proposition 2 1/2 will make the city miss these revenues more than before, he said, adding that a bill now pending before the state assembly would allow the city to tax half of Harvard's property.

Other panel members were more willing to see the University's position. "The University claims to be pursuing a public interest, and the City of Cambridge claims to be pursuing a public interest," Peter M. Lange, associate professor of European Studies and former president of the Cambridge Civic Association, said, adding. "Strangely enough, these two public interests are not the same."

Sullivan said Harvard first became particularly insensitive to the community in the fall of 1978, when it signed a long-term lease on 18-20 Ware St., over-stepping the boundaries of the Red Line, "the zoning area Harvard had promised not to exceed in its real estate acquisitions