In 2003, when Harvard negotiated with the city to construct new buildings in the Riverside area, the University pledged in its written agreement that undergraduates would not be living in them.

“In general community members in Cambridge and in Allston are concerned that undergraduate [housing] may not be compatible with neighborhood activities,” says Mary H. Power, Harvard’s senior director of community relations.

In Allston as well as in Cambridge, residents tend to identify graduate students as more studious and also as longer-term residents.

“The general view in the neighborhood is that undergraduates very often don’t think about their neighbors very much and they tend to be less considerate than students who are a little bit older,” Van Meter says.

‘MERELY A CONCEPT’

Allston residents contacted for this article say that during years of discussions with Harvard, the concept of undergraduate housing in their neighborhood never came up.

The North Allston Strategic Framework for Planning—a document released earlier this year which outlines both the University’s and the community’s priorities for a new campus—made only brief mention of undergraduate housing, citing the work of Harvard’s Allston Life Task Force.

“The highest university housing priority is for graduate students, but housing for postdoctoral fellows, visiting scholars, and undergraduates are also possible,” the report noted.

In contrast, the document repeatedly mentions the University’s need for graduate student housing in the new campus and even suggests possible sites.

Kathy Spiegelman, Harvard’s top planner and the director of the Allston Initiative, says that the possibility of undergraduate housing did not come up with residents earlier because “there was no discussion internally in Harvard” about it.

In October 2003, University President Lawrence H. Summers wrote in an open letter that, while the idea of putting undergraduates in Allston was “more speculative,” it could help to “strengthen the bonds between the Cambridge and Allston parts of our extended campus.”

“That was the first time when the prospect of undergrads in Allston was highlighted,” says Van Meter. “It certainly wasn’t something discussed [before].”

Indeed, two weeks ago, Ray Mellone, the chair of the Harvard Allston Campus Task Force, said that undergraduate housing in Allston was “merely a concept.”

“It’s just conjecture,” he said. “Harvard hasn’t come through with the plan. It will have to be reviewed by the community before anything happens. We’re not going to react to anything that hasn’t been put forward as development.”

A DISTANCE AWAY