A similar negotiating structure fell apart two years ago in Mid-Cambridge when residents objected to Harvard’s proposal to build a tunnel underneath Cambridge Street to connect the two halves of its new Center for Government and International Studies. A team of neighborhood, University and city representatives reached a tentative accord that would have allowed Harvard to build the tunnel in exchange for community benefits. But a neighborhood negotiating representative pulled out at the last minute because he said he was not given the chance to bring the agreement to the other residents for approval.

Agassiz residents were aware of the problems in the Mid-Cambridge negotiations, and stipulated that Harvard had to afford the community sufficient time to mull over the agreement before taking a vote. Some still complained that there was not enough time for their suggestions to be taken into account.

“I felt very strongly and stated it often throughout the process that we needed to go back to the neighborhood,” says Agassiz resident Miriam Goldberg, one of the members of the ACID negotiating team. “My understanding is that we did that in as many ways as we could...When you work with the community there will always be some individuals who feel they were not heard enough.”

Bloomstein says the neighborhood representatives in Agassiz tried to keep the community behind them in the process by holding periodic votes at neighborhood meetings—which he calls “sanity checks”—to make sure the residents still supported the direction of the negotiations.

ACID also conducted three community surveys over the course of two years, which Bloomstein says were used to gauge the residents’ priorities and establish the frameworks for the negotiations.

In Riverside, the city council, as the body responsible for approving zoning ordinances, played a much more direct role in the discussions, and several residents have expressed frustration about the process.

The talks in Riverside began when the city council established a study committee which met from fall 2000 to spring 2002. The committee developed the neighborhood rezoning petition, which Harvard opposed as being too restrictive.

Murphy and Councillor David P. Maher, the co-chairs of the council’s Ordinance Committee, met individually with Harvard officials, neighborhood residents and other council members last fall to try to reach a compromise.

“After the study committee work, I think we felt that we needed to take a look at the work that had been done, to talk to the individuals involved, to take what was motivating the work of the study group and then to try to present it to the University in a different way,” Murphy says.

In September, the month before a resolution was struck, residents complained to the city council that they were being left in the dark as councillors and Harvard officials met without them.

“I respect [Maher and Murphy] for taking the initiative and getting Harvard to sit down at the table, but I certainly disagree with the way the community was treated during the process,” Baumann says.

Residents credit several councillors, including Marjorie C. Decker and Anthony D. Galluccio, with helping the deal get done in the end by getting residents more involved in the discussion.

Wysoker says he realizes in hindsight that it may have been “inevitable” for Harvard and the councillors to have discussions without the residents.

“My job ought to be to make sure the city councillors are on my side, rather than trying to be at the table for all these discussions,” he says.

In addition to concerns about their role in the process, Riverside residents have criticized Harvard for what they describe as unfair tactics during the negotiations. They say the University was not prompt in its responses to neighbors’ requests, delaying the process at the end and leaving the residents without enough time to study the agreement carefully before they had to make a decision.