Harvard’s expansion into Allston still incites uncertainty and opposition among many residents.
The community has been meeting at the library with Boston-based planners and BRA representatives since June of last year, and anticipate a “Community Master Plan”—which will determine all the zoning for North Allston—sometime this summer.
The monthly meetings routinely address fears of skyrocketing housing prices, anticipated traffic woes that will likely accompany development, and general distrust of Harvard after their secret dealings.
When it's not hosting community meetings, the Allston branch of the Boston Public Library functions like any neighborhood library. Small kids play in the children’s section while their mothers talk with the librarian. The far wall is lined with computers and their middle-aged and elderly users.
And running past the library, the number 66 bus passes by on its route, which leads—like Harvard’s future development—further into Allston.
—Staff writer Stephanie M. Skier can be reached at skier@fas.harvard.edu.
BUILDING A NEW HARVARD
This is the first article in a series on Harvard’s plans for development across the Charles River in Allston. Today’s story introduces the sights and sounds of Allston. Installments over the rest of the week will look at how Harvard is deciding what to do with its properties, how much Allston would cost and how a group of Design School students is envisioning the campus of the future.