“Harvard is a bureaucracy that seems to want to get bigger and stronger,” said Stephen Helfer. First priority of a bureaucracy is to maintain itself. With more administrators each year, and less contact with students or what they call "members of the community" Harvard University officials act more and more like the solipsistic bureaucracy in Washington D.C. They are remote from reality and what ordinary citizens want. As Councilor Mazen noted if there was more input solicited from ordinary civilians (or even students) who use the spaces before final decisions are made, there would be less disappointments.
[From article]
Faced with complaints from Cambridge residents, the board on Thursday instructed Harvard officials to rethink some of the building plans to secure more public support for the changes. Members of the Board of Zoning Appeal gave Harvard’s planners and architects no specific instruction on how to improve the plans, and unlike they did at an earlier hearing in June, they set no date to take up the plans again.
Public outcry “is happening because traditionally, people have too much of the decision baked before they go the general public,” Cambridge City Councillor Nadeem Mazen said at the meeting.
[. . .]
Originally, the campus center was slated to first undergo construction in spring 2016 and open in 2018. According to University spokesperson Brigid O’Rourke, Harvard has not altered its construction timeline, despite the two delays from the Board of Zoning Appeal.
In June, Cambridge residents criticized plans for the campus center, intended for use as a public space, arguing that it would be uninviting and exclusive to Harvard affiliates only. At Thursday’s hearing, however, representatives from Harvard presented an updated plan before the board, including added signage clarifying intent for public use.
Other updates to the University’s plans included a written commitment to preserving the chess tables in Forbes Plaza, the area at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Dunster Street. Harvard’s architects and planners also included provisions for additional outdoor seating in that plaza.
But those changes were not enough to assuage residents’ concerns about the proposed renovations. People in opposition to the plans said they thought Harvard’s structure was too grandiose and encroaching on Forbes Plaza, calling the proposed building a “Harvard theme park” and “Taj Mahal”-like structure.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/8/2/campus-center-plans-delayed-twice/
Zoning Board Delays Campus Center Plans a Second Time
By JALIN P. CUNNINGHAM,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
August 1, 2015
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