But he added that his overall impression of the agreement was positive.
“The agreement represents a wonderful improvement on the relationship between Harvard and the community,” he said.
The Fine Points
Last night, the negotiating team presented a draft of the first specific “implementation agreement” covering the three science buildings that are next on Harvard’s development agenda.
The three buildings will together make up about 670,000 square feet, most of which will be underground.
In return for the community’s support of these projects, Harvard will agree to a construction mitigation plan, fund several traffic improvements along Oxford Street and provide new landscaping along the campus edge
The University will also establish a new science education partnership with the Cambridge Public Schools at an estimated cost of $1.45 million, and make a $1 million contribution to a new fund for city-wide youth programs that will be administered by the Agassiz Neighborhood Council (ANC). Harvard will also donate an additional $50,000 for planting trees in the area.
The benefits will be delivered in increments linked to the approval and completion of the three building projects.
Last April the community agreed to support the Biological Research Infrastructure, a 75,000-foot underground structure that will house laboratory mice.
Designs for the second building, the 135,000-square-foot Laboratory for Interface Science and Engineering, have also been presented to the community, and the project received the approval of the city’s Planning Board last month.
A new 436,000-square-foot science building on Hammond Street is still in the planning stages. In its meeting Monday, the Harvard Corporation told FAS adminstrators that they enthusiastically supported the project, University President Lawrence H. Summers told The Crimson after the meeting.
Future phases of the agreement between Harvard and the Agassiz neighborhood will establish specific community benefits linked to the expansion of the Law School and the further growth of the sciences and the Divinity School.
“The goal is for the relationship to extend well beyond the immediate projects,” Power said.
The broad agreement and the first specific implementation plan will come up for a vote at the next ANC meeting on Dec. 16.
Friedman, who works at Boston College and said she has not always trusted institutions to deal with their neighbors fairly, told the community members last night that the agreement with Harvard was a “pleasant surprise.”
“These negotiations can often lead to nothing,” she said.
—Stephen M. Marks contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Staff writer Jessica R. Rubin-Wills can be reached at rubinwil@fas.harvard.edu.