The argument over the Kennedy Library site hinges on two issues: parking and related facilities construction on the site. The library is expected to attract at least one million tourists a year, and cause a six to seven per cent increase in traffic in the area. Community groups have called upon the Kennedy Corporation to provide hundreds of parking spaces to accommodate the crowds.

THE LIBRARY plans have touched off a wave of building in the Cambridge area. Kanavos Enterprises, a Cambridge development firm, has announced plans for a 315 room Holiday Inn across from the Harvard Square Post Office, to be finished by June 1974, and another local developer, Graham Gund, plans to build a 500 room hotel on a Memorial Drive site. Both developers have said that they expect most of their business to come from visitors to the library.

Some observers speculate that the number of tourists that the library will attract, coupled with rising land costs, will radically change the character of commercial life in the Square, replacing small shops and coffee houses with fast-food stores and tourist-related enterprises. Oliver Brooks, chairman of the Harvard Square Task Force, a group of local residents, said that local businessmen are uncertain about the effect the Library will have on business. "Some feel that it will increase business, while others think that the crowds, the pushing and the shoving may lower volume," Brooks explained.

Of the 12 acres on the Kennedy site, only three will be taxable. The rest of the site is Federal or University property. For this reason, the character of related facilities to be built on those three acres is crucial to Cambridge.

The Cambridge Planning and Development Department has stated, that the library project must "substantially augment the tax base and economic activity of Cambridge." Construction of tax exempt facilities "on the site, which is some of the potentially most valuable real estate in North America, is a luxury which Cambridge is hard pressed to afford," the Department continued.

The Planning Department is asking for a return of $750,000 to the City from the related facilities construction, but the nature of the facilities that will be built is still undetermined. The original Kennedy Corporation plans called for 120 condominium apartments to be built on the site, but his plan was abandoned for economic reasons.

Community groups who are negotiating with the Corporation over a master plan to tie in the library project with development in the Square area are pushing for a related facilities plan which includes apartments and stores. Although the community groups have reported some progress in the negotiations, no concrete agreement has emerged from the talks.

Opposition to the Library plans is centered in the neighborhood near the Square. Brooks said that he could not state "with assurance that the library is here to stay," but the jobs, and the economic boost that the project will provide have won it backers in area farther from the Square.

It is almost certain that the Kennedy Library development will become a permanent part of Harvard Square.

The experience of the Kennedy Library points up a theme which is common to large urban universities. Faced with the need to expand, pressed for space and responsible only to a constituency of academics, their plans jar the sensibilities of the community. Unable or unwilling to evaluate the effect of their actions on the surrounding area, they often act irresponsibly.

Bok's 2.5:1 plan, which panders to coeducation and expansion at the same time, was formulated to simultaneously appease students who wanted more women at Harvard, and alumni who would not accept a reduction in male enrollment. The decision has already sealed the doom of Hunt Hall, and each oversized class that it brings to Cambridge will act as a wedge to force Cambridge residents away from Harvard Square. As long as the priorities of prestige and academic whim guide Harvard's plans, the University will face tough decisions about where and how to build.

And unless Burris Young actually does put army cots in Memorial Hall, the process will begin again. There's 100 more in every class.