“All universities that are in neighborhood settings have this issue,” Stone said. “Part of it is reality that undergraduates love music and love late hours, keep weird hours. And part of it is probably unfounded in the sense that you can’t generalize about an entire group from some instances.”

The report included results from a long survey that solicited students’ preferences for housing attributes in Allston without asking whether students supported the housing move.

The survey found that distance from the Yard dramatically impacts student life. River House residents are more than twice as likely to return to their dorms in the middle of the day as Quad residents. Quad residents are 10 times as likely to take a shuttle to class, while River residents are 50 percent more likely to exercise outdoors.

Students’ top three demands for Allston amenities were more varied: late-night eating options, a student center and a better fitness center.

The report also recommends considering substantial improvements to Harvard’s athletic facilities—which will likely move further from the river to accommodate the new Houses.

Summers said Scalise and other athletics officials have raised concerns about the quality of the University’s varsity athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium.

The report also suggests construction of improved and more extensive undergraduate arts facilities in Allston.

Thompson, who chaired the Allston life task force, said planners reached a consensus about the need to expand arts facilities.

“Everybody agreed that one of the things we need to do in Allston is to make up for some of the deficiencies in undergraduate arts space—dance, theater, practice rooms,” he said. “We need to do more in Cambridge but there’s not a lot of room.”

In conjunction with the new performance space, the undergraduate life group noted that the Departments of Music and Visual and Environmental Studies could be moved. They also considered moving student services like University Health Services and constructing a student center to bolster life across the Charles.

While most major classes would remain in Cambridge, the task force recommended that some afternoon classes, such as seminars and science labs, be held in Allston.

THE BACK (BUNSEN) BURNER?

The academic focal point of the new campus will be a science hub of at least 1 million square feet, adding a third science “locus” to Cambridge and the University’s medical facilities in Longwood.

FAS science departments are jockeying for what little space remains in their current Cambridge home. While a few new buildings are on the way, Summers wrote in his October letter that the University will still need more and newer facilities, noting that Allston would include “new kinds of space” for the sciences.

“Even assuming we fulfill those plans over the next several years, we will before long confront an insufficiency of space for science,” he wrote.