This parking lot will be the site of a six-story graduate student housing complex by the summer of 2007.

By the summer of 2007, Dunster, Mather, and Leverett Houses are set to have a new next-door neighbor—a six-story graduate student housing complex on Cowperthwaite Street.

Construction will begin this August and continue through the school year, with work starting at 8 a.m. Monday through Friday, a schedule that has sparked undergraduate opposition to the project.

“The rest of my Harvard experience will be filled with noise,” Leverett House resident Yomari Chavez ’07 told a group of 19 students who met earlier this month to plan a strategy for bringing their concerns to University administrators’ attention.

After visiting University President Lawrence H. Summers at his office hours last Wednesday, students plan to meet with Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby and Deputy Dean of the College Patricia D. O’Brien this week.

The rooms that will bear the brunt of the construction noise have become less desirable in housing lotteries. Students also object to the size of the building, and they complain that they weren’t informed about the plans earlier.

But graduate students say the building will provide much-needed relief in the tight Cambridge housing market and argue that undergraduates don’t fully understand their plight.

“They sometimes forget that they are part of a larger community at Harvard,” says Kennedy School of Government student Tonya M. Cropper. “We’re not just there to service them as TFs.”

After the University spent years negotiating to balance the needs of graduate students and neighborhood residents, undergraduates are now demanding that their voices be heard as well.

While students say it may be too late to drastically alter the construction plans, they hope their efforts will give undergraduates a seat at the decision-making table in the future.

YEARS IN THE MAKING

The University has long viewed the parking lot across from Dunster and Mather as a valuable spot for development, but resistance from neighbors stalled plans until October 2003, when Harvard and the city signed an agreement that would allow Harvard to expand on the site and other properties in the Riverside neighborhood.

The agreement permits Harvard to construct 328 housing units on two sites in Riverside in exchange for providing a public park and 36 affordable housing units for city residents.

In December 2004, the Cambridge Planning Board unanimously approved Harvard’s plans.

Economics graduate student Raven E. Saks, who serves on the housing committee of the Graduate Student Council (GSC), says she was invited to meet with Harvard Real Estate Services (HRES) officials to discuss plans for the Cowperthwaite Street building over a year ago.

But Leverett House Master Howard Georgi ’68 wrote in an e-mail that, while he was aware that construction was planned for the site, he wasn’t shown designs until February­—despite efforts to meet with HRES officials before then.