Word: watertowne
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Last fall, Harvard reached a deal with neighboring Watertown that guaranteed $3.8 million dollars per year to the city as a result of the University’s purchase of a 30-acre office complex. The neighborhood’s almost unanimously favorable reaction gave us hope that Harvard might be turning a corner in its heretofore clumsy community relations. But if the events of this year are any indication, Harvard—and its neighbors—still have a long...
...Watertown negotiations were essential because the city stood to lose millions of dollars in tax revenue due to Harvard’s exempt status. The tax revenue generated by the parcel Harvard purchased accounted for almost five percent of Watertown’s entire budget—money the city had been counting on for library and school renovations among other projects. Shortly after Harvard bought the complex, Watertown children and their parents protested Harvard’s heartless action. In response to the negotiation’s outcome, those same parents cheered the University’s presence...
...Harvard’s magnanimity toward Watertown has complicated its relations with its other neighbors—a prospect Harvard predicted. Indeed, Cambridge city councillors have since called for a reassessment of the city’s losses due to Harvard’s tax exemptions—even though its thirteen-year-old agreement for payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) with Harvard will remain in effect until 2010. In Boston this spring, after Harvard acquired 91 acres of land in Allston from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino also called on Harvard to increase...
When Harvard’s purchase of a 30-acre tract in Watertown sparked outrage from neighbors, University officials negotiated an deal that guarantees Watertown an annual payment of $3.8 million—no matter how much of the parcel Harvard takes off the tax rolls. In Boston, where Harvard holds more than nine times as much land—and is currently hammering out a deal to buy even more—the University pays only $1.6 million in PILOT. Much of Harvard’s holdings in Boston are still on the tax rolls, and Harvard...
This principle is no surprise to the University. In a 2001 internal memorandum sent to University President Lawrence H. Summers and uncovered by The Boston Globe, top university planner Kathy Spiegelman wrote, “We propose to present a generous offer for a [payment] agreement with Watertown, knowing full well that such an offer will lead to more generous provisions for property acquisition in Cambridge and Boston...