“Their Achilles’ heel is adverse publicity,” Gifford said.
No official representative of Harvard attended the meeting.
Saying they were frustrated with Harvard’s piecemeal way of informing residents of development plans, some neighbors even suggested creating their own master plan for Harvard.
“Instead of reacting to each of Harvard’s proposals and saying ‘no, no, no,’ we should define what it is that should be happening,” Baumann said.
Cambridge resident and Lea Professor of Medieval History Thomas N. Bisson told neighbors that faculty could be their allies in pressuring Harvard for more information.
“I think Harvard has a master plan, but they understandably don’t want to reveal it,” Bisson said.
—Christopher M. Loomis contributed to the reporting of this article.
—Staff writer Lauren R. Dorgan can be reached at dorgan@fas.harvard.edu.