Over 700 beds, and even a dining hall, will replace the 240 parking spaces in Camden Lot if Northeastern’s idea clears what is becoming an increasingly higher hurdle – gaining community support.
The Community Task Force, a committee of 14 community members and seven Northeastern administrators and city officials, met Monday night and discussed various sites owned by the university. The sites were examined for their usefulness in the construction of residence halls that would bring many students back on campus and out of the neighborhoods.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), in conjunction with Northeastern, formed the task force to work on the university’s Institutional Master Plan and an amendment to its master plan. President Richard Freeland set a goal that the task force is also seeing through – identifying sites that can accommodate housing for 75 percent of Northeastern’s undergraduate students.
“That’s a long-term goal,” President Freeland said of increasing the number of students who live on campus. “We’ve got a long road to go.”
Currently, about half of Northeastern’s undergraduate population lives on campus. Freeland also set a goal for the university to keep its population around its current level of almost 15,000 undergraduate students.
The Camden site, as proposed by Northeastern during the meeting, would contain three buildings: one seven stories, one nine stories and one 21-story tower. The community members who filled the Raytheon Amphitheater to voice their concerns let out a collective groan as the model of what the buildings would look like was displayed on the projection screen.
“We’re trying to fit 10 pounds of potatoes in a five-pound bag,” said Institutional Master Plan architect David Lee, of the number of students the task force is trying to fit on campus. Lee has previously worked with Northeastern, helping to design the Renaissance Parking Garage, the interior of the John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute and West Village F.
The ideas presented by Northeastern for the new buildings would result in freshmen and sophomores being mandated to live on campus, which would bring those students out of the neighborhoods, Doggett said.
“I don’t think anyone should be required to live on campus,” said Lindsay Shades, a sophomore biotechnology major. “I consider the university to be a place of academia, and it’s sad it’s becoming a place to socialize.”
Students would also be housed in a proposed 855-bed residence hall located in North Lot. Unlike the Camden site buildings, which would house upperclassmen, the North Lot building would house freshmen, said architect for the project Kyu Sung Woo during the meeting.
“There are lots of factors that go into building the residence hall on North Lot. First is the critical student behavior aspect, second is a concern about density, which we do not agree with, and third is a different viewpoint than the community on what is community and what is university property and how it gels together,” said Jeff Doggett, associate director of community affairs.
Community members said although North Lot is technically “on campus,” it is still in the middle of the Fenway neighborhood and is only an alley away from residential buildings.
However, Vice President for Public Affairs Bob Gittens said the sites such as North Lot and Camden Lot are still technically located on campus.
Despite the thin line that separates “on campus” from “off campus,” Doggett said building on North Lot would help a recent agreement between Northeastern and the city to move students out of leased properties and onto campus.
“The thing it really gets down to is that the university was pushed by the community to stop leasing and build more housing and now that we’re executing that agreement … we feel for a variety of reasons that North Lot is the appropriate [area],” Doggett said.
Ryder Hall, Ryder Lot, the Gainsborough Garage, the Forsyth Building, Parcel 18 on the corner of Ruggles Street and Columbus Avenue, the Burke Street parking lot, the Matthews Arena lot and the land on the Huntington Avenue side of Speare Hall were presented as other sites owned by Northeastern where residence halls could possibly be constructed.
Columbus Lot was also discussed as a possible site, but was not a top choice for some of the city officials and university members on the task force, as a plan is already in the works to construct a multi-use athletic field on the site.
“Maybe you can’t have your stadium, but at least that would keep the neighborhoods in tact,” said a community member who sits on the task force. Some of the community members who sit on the task force urged the university to construct its “recreation field” on the Camden site near Carter Playground, and instead build the residence halls on Columbus Lot.
The task force has an April deadline, which had already been extended four months, to submit a Project Notification Form (PNF). The purpose of the PNF is to notify the BRA and community members of Northeastern’s intentions to develop sites, Doggett said.
City Councilor Chuck Turner, who represents the Roxbury area, called Northeastern’s expansion “racist” and asked the other members of the task force to vote for the April deadline to be extended so the committee could seriously consider all the possible sites, and what the buildings on those sites would ultimately mean in the end.
“I think it’s racist to continue to build on black and Latin communities,” Turner said, citing Coventry and Davenport as among the most recent buildings or acquisitions by Northeastern. The councilor said all of the university’s most recent construction and purchasing has been concentrated on the Roxbury side of its campus.
The April deadline still stands, and community members in the audience and on the task force agreed they need to have the students out of the neighborhoods and back on campus sooner rather than later.
Community members in the audience accused Northeastern of encroaching on its neighbors and trying to split the Fenway and Roxbury communities on the issue. Residents of the neighborhoods suggested Northeastern start building residence halls closer to the “core” of its campus, rather than spreading out into the communities.
The Matthews Arena parking lot was discussed by members in the audience as a better site for a residence hall because of its location on campus away from neighborhoods.
Northeastern administrators quickly dismissed one suggestion to demolish the Lake/Meserve/Holmes/Nightingale Hall building and construct in its place a residence hall, and move the academic buildings and office space to the outskirts of campus near the neighborhoods.
The idea would not work, Gittens said, because of time, finding temporary locations for offices in the building while it is being demolished and the expensive cost to demolish a building, which Gittens said could go toward erecting other buildings in different locations.
Although she said nothing was really accomplished at Monday’s meeting, task force member and Roxbury community member Adline Stallings said she is at least happy to have a voice in Northeastern’s building process this time.
Previously, when Northeastern purchased its new building on Coventry Street and went to work on Davenport Commons, Turner said the university never sought the opinions of the community members or its elected officials.
The next meeting of the Community Task Force is March 28 in the Raytheon Amphitheater and is the last one before the beginning of the month of April and the set deadline.
