Over the past few years, the University has tried to reclaim the land for varied development projects—a scrapped art museum, and now different incarnations of graduate student housing—to the ire of local residents, who want Harvard to donate the land as a park, or preserve Mahoney’s.

The council did not come to any definitive conclusion about how the planning board should change, aside from the recommendation that they have a better sound system at meetings so that more residents could comfortably attend.

In the words of Councillor Brian Murphy ’86-’87, this would make the meeting seem less like “an NPR talk show program.”

Councillor E. Denise Simmons said that she would like to improve board members’ skills in dealing with a wide variety of people—particularly non-experts on development—but that she needed more time to consider any other steps.

Several councillors did praise Healy’s recent appointment of a Riverside Study Committee member to the planning board, however.

—Staff writer Alexandra N. Atiya can be reached at atiya@fas.harvard.edu