The price a private company has to pay to build a power plant in an urban area nowadays is pretty steep. The local utility has a monopoly on power that's not easy to break. Federal and state environmental laws prohibit construction of all but the cleanest, and therefore the most expensive, projects. And nobody--especially organized residents--wants a noisy power plant as a neighbor. Just to deal with that kind of opposition the company needs big money and a lot of political influence. And Harvard has got just enough of both to drop a $56-million power plant on a city block near the Med School in Boston's Mission Hill.

Before Harvard could undertake such a massive project, the University had to be sure that it had a plant that was worth the fight. And even though many of the medical-related institutions had to be convinced beforehand that they were going to get a better deal by building their own oil-burning plant than they could get by sticking with the local utility, Boston Edison.

What sold Harvard and the other institutions on the notion of their own power plant was the concept of "total energy"--a new way to provide cheap and reliable power by producing electricity as a by-product of steam generation, Harvard officials claim. So 11 medical-related institutions in the area, collectively known as the Medical Area Service Corporation (MASCO) threw their chips in with "total energy" and decided to build their own plant in Mission HIll.

But arguments about cheap kilowattage and reliable service aren't very attractive to the people who must live with the power plant in their backyard. There was a time when the Francis St. area residents who live closest to the site could have stopped this power plant--or any medical expansion for that matter--right in its tracks. That was back in 1969 when the University sent eviction notices to 180 tenant families in the Francis St. section of Mission Hill so it could clear the area for land-banking purposes. The tenants, with strong support from striking students at Harvard, formed the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard (RTH), and soon after forced the University to back down. The homes, some of them now rehabilitated at University expense, still stand as a testimonial to Harvard's capitulation.

In fact, the University even surrendered the lease on a valuable parcel of land nearby for the construction of a mixed-income housing project. This project would allow RTH residents to move from their homes to cheaper, modern housing. The housing project would thus clear the way for the hospital expansion Harvard wanted.

RTH had no experience with building any housing project, let alone one as ambitious as this one. It was only through Harvard's expertise that the residents managed to secure a $40-million mortgage from the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, the largest home loan that the MHFA has ever offered. But because the project was profit-making (274 of 774 units were to be rented at the market rate), MHFA could go only 90 per cent of the project's cost. So the University bailed out the housing project by contacting banking connections unavailable to RTH, and put its credit on the line to secure an equity loan from Citicorp, a subsidiary of First National City Bank.

But it didn't come for free. When student support at Harvard for RTH dissipated and the tenant organization itself grew flabby and lost some of its fight as well as some of its more radical members, Harvard began to exact some concessions. In exchange for some of its earlier aid to the RTH dream homes, the University asked for one simple favor--RTH was not to come out against the total-energy power plant. In February of 1975, the residents agreed to the deal.

The medical institutions meanwhile went ahead with plans to secure Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) approval for the MASCO power plant. MASCO needed this approval so it could take advantage of a state law that aids developers of "blighted" land in urban renewal area. This law allows the developer tax-exempt construction if it can prove to the BRA board that the land is blighted and will be benefitted by renewal. In return, the applicant has to pay some taxes to the city--a percentage of the project's income.

But the understanding with RTH was only a paper agreement, not good enough to stand up to possible attacks by other Mission Hill residents, those living on the other side of Huntington Ave. The BRA might be sensitive to such protests when considering whether to give MASCO the go-ahead. The residents across the street would not benefit from the housing, but would share the pollution. What if these residents were to rally support in the community against the plant--visible, angry antagonisms that could burst out at the BRA's hearing on the project's building permit and jeopardize the plant's neutral status in city hall, turning the political process against it?

Harvard didn't need to wait for an answer. The insurance policy it needed against going into a multi-million project and later having it shot down by residents came from the very group that had beaten the University in '69--the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard.

RTH staffers knew that inflation and an unsound bond market threatened to put the housing out of the financial grasp of the tenants. Harvard volunteered a plan where an estimated $300,000 in costs per year could be shaved off the project, just enough to put RTH over the top. It was a simple suggestion--but one that was difficult for RTH to refuse. Harvard offered to supply the housing project with free steam, chilled water, and cooling from its own power plant, thus inextricably linking the two. RTH accepted early this year. With that fait accompli, RTH had no choice but to work side by side with Harvard against other Mission Hill residents to get the power plant built as fast and as soon as possible.

So it was no surprise that the RTH members, out in full force to protect their interests, voted in favor of the plant with an informal show of hands at the final hearing on the power plant. There was little choice--a vote against the power plant amounted to a vote against the Roxbury Tenants' hard-fought housing project.

Mike Lerner is a man in a difficult position--he's working for the tenants, as a full-time staff member of RTH, but he's being paid by the landlord--Harvard, at least until money comes from the state for the housing project. It's Lerner's job to promote the housing, and, necessarily, the power plant. Lerner's not thrilled about the position he's in, and he'd like his project to be more selfsupporting. But to him Harvard is giving the residents about as good a deal as they can expect.

"Look," Lerner explains about RTH's decision to accept Harvard's offer, "if I wanted to have someone drive my car to New York City, and a guy says he is going down to New York and he would be willing to take my car but only by flat-bed trailer, I'll take it, because otherwise my car doesn't get to New York, at all." Lerner says, "Harvard doesn't give away ice in the winter," but the University has taken certain risks that it didn't have to take simply to make sure that the housing project gets off the ground.

Kevin Fitzgerald has only been a state representative for Mission Hill for a few months, but he likes to think he knows what most residents in Mission Hill want. He's also smart enough to realize that RTH can mobilize a couple of hundred voters within the organization against him at the next election.