“I don’t think that this agreement fosters trust,” Wysoker says. “I think Harvard wanted something and it realized that it had to give something up to get it. It tried to figure out how to give up as little as it could in order to get what it wanted.”

Stone calls the Riverside agreement a “remarkable, positive moment” but says it takes time to move beyond decades of distrust.

“This deal goes a long way toward the beginning of much different relationship, but it would be unrealistic to expect [the distrust] to be all gone,” he says.

And residents across the city continue to argue that Harvard, with its hefty endowment and 189 acres of tax-exempt property, could do more to assist its host city. The University contributes a voluntary payment in lieu of taxes currently set at $1.7 million, and Stone says Harvard and city officials are making “slow but steady progress” on a renewed agreement.

Despite the residents’ continued gripes, Murphy says he believes Harvard is doing a better job communicating with the surrounding neighborhoods.

“I think that the relationship’s getting better in both directions. I think that there’s probably a greater openness,” Murphy says. “There’s almost inevitably going to be tension in the relationship when you’re dealing with a city that’s as dense and built up as Cambridge.”

As Harvard officials seek to build on the agreements and develop closer ties with Cantabrigians, they will also face significant challenges in Allston, where the University has outlined plans to build a new campus with science facilities, professional schools and undergraduate housing.

Just as in Cambridge, Harvard continues to work to overcome the weight of history across the river.

Boston politicians and residents were outraged by the University’s announcement in 1997 that it had secretly purchased 52 acres of land in Allston.

“That’s absurd,” Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino told the Boston Globe at the time. “Without informing anyone or telling anybody? That’s total arrogance.”

Harvard found itself in another spat last year when residents and politicians objected to the purchase of a 91-acre parcel of land from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.

While Cambridge has a mayor chosen from within the city council’s ranks to fill a largely ceremonial position, Boston has a strong mayor and an agency dedicated to neighborhood planning, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which means Harvard will be working with a different political system in its relations with Allston.

But Stone says the University will try to apply some of the same elements that worked in Cambridge, such as offering generous benefits, being forthcoming and coordinating internal planning.

“Not surprising them ever is, I think, a cardinal rule,” he adds.

Harvard announced earlier this month that it hired a team led by the New York-based firm Cooper, Robertson & Partners to develop a master plan for Allston. The firm will base its work on the reports of Faculty task forces, as well as the report from a community task force, expected to be released this summer.