Northeastern University’s relentless expansion is frustrating Roxbury activists and officials who say the inner-city college has lost sight of its working-class roots as it grabs more land in their communities and gives little back.
“Northeastern has been a bad actor,” said Tito Jackson, a community activist who represented the area on the City Council. “Northeastern has continued to try to run over the neighborhood and community with their building … Northeastern communicates regularly that the voice of the people of Roxbury doesn’t matter.”
The latest community-relations flare-up around Northeastern is the swanky new 26-story, 975-bed dorm proposed for the corner of Tremont Street and Melnea Cass Boulevard — a building that has drawn the ire of various community leaders who say the school is ignoring the needs of the neighborhoods it continues to build into.
City Councilor Kim Janey, who now represents the area, filed a letter to the Boston Planning and Development Agency in December opposing the proposed dorm, saying, “For those living in Northeastern’s shadow, those benefits they claim to bring to the community go unseen. From supporting affordable housing projects, to supporting local vendors, the University has consistently fallen short on its promises to be a strong community partner.”
Vanessa Snow of the community organization NU for the Common Good said, “I always thought of Northeastern as a really accessible university with an urban mission — a focus on getting folks jobs. And it just seems like now it’s just focused on trying to be this world-class institution that can make a lot of money that it can’t get taxed on, but not in ways that are a boon for the community.”
John Tobin, Northeastern’s head of community affairs, pushed back on criticism, saying that the university isn’t displacing community members and puts a great deal of effort into its community task force.
“We know full well that we cannot grow without our neighbors growing along with us,” Tobin said.
The university, as a nonprofit, doesn’t have to pay property taxes, but it is signed onto the voluntary payment in lieu of taxes program, which lays out guidelines for how much money colleges, hospitals and other nonprofits should chip in each year to the city. Those guidelines suggest Northeastern pay $11.4 million, though last year it paid $1.7 million and added $5.7 million in assorted “community benefits.”
“We continue to work with the administration on that,” Tobin said of Northeastern’s shortfall on its PILOT commitment.
Of the community benefits, Snow said, “The community feels like they don’t have enough of the voice in coming up with those.”
Jackson cited the university-touted renovation of Carter Park in Roxbury as another community mismatch: “They took out all the basketball courts and replaced them with tennis courts.”
State Rep. Nika Elugardo, who represents Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, said she’s “hopeful” that Northeastern can make moves to have a better relationship with the community — though she said that often hasn’t been the case in previous years.
“They really need to listen better,” Elugardo said. “We need to shift the culture from a dominance model to a partnership model.”
