On one of the key Harvard-owned sites in Riverside—the plot of land on Memorial Drive currently occupied by Mahoney’s Garden Center—the University will be limited to heights of 65 feet along the river and 35 feet at the neighborhood’s edge.

In the Kerry Corner area near Mather House, Harvard will be allowed to construct a 55-foot-high housing complex on Cowperthwaite St., with a height limit of 35 feet on its other sites in the area.

The neighborhood negotiated with Harvard for lower buildings on a site on Blackstone St., reducing the maximum height to 65 feet after last week’s draft agreement had called for 85 feet. Most areas of this site will be capped at 45 feet.

Cob Carlson, the first signer and one of the most vocal advocates of the neighborhood-developed petition that bore his name, said he felt the allowed heights on the Mahoney’s site were too high under the new agreement.

“The neighborhood is effectively walled off from the river,” he told the council last night.

But other neighborhood residents said they were willing to accept the terms of the deal.

“I’m not thrilled by it, but I think Harvard is probably not thrilled by it either,” said Alec Wysoker ’84. “It brings a lot of benefit to the city and the neighborhood.”

Residents urged the council to carefully oversee the agreement’s implementation.

The plan includes fallback zoning regulations—so called “base” zoning—to be followed only if either Harvard or the city does not live up to its end of the bargain.

Both sides said that the base zoning is undesirable, and after the meeting Murphy explained that the base zoning was purposefully constructed to keep both sides in line with the negotiated deal.

Although they said they liked the final product, several residents said last night that they were unhappy with the rushed, last-minute process leading up to the deal. (See timeline, below.)

Harvard representatives sat on the neighborhood study committee three years ago that developed the Carlson petition, and residents questioned why the benefits they are providing now were not offered years earlier, instead of now that the deadline for the petition’s expiration is looming.

“I think we got some of the things that were very high on the neighborhood’s list,” resident Phyllis Baumann said, but she added, “We all have some reservations about the substance of the agreement and a great deal of reservations about the process.”

Mary H. Power, Harvard’s senior director of community relations, said the process was “long and arduous” but necessary to arrive at an outcome everyone could agree to.

“It’s absolutely a win-win and the beginning of a much more constructive relationship after decades of tension,” she said after the vote. “I think as a result of that long process we’ll have a stronger relationship going forward.”