People who live or own property near the site were the core of the attendees. RNA President Lawrence Adkins stated firmly that ”the Association does not go against abutters.” Exactly a year ago, Riverside residents seeking to downzone areas along the Charles River faced an unpleasant choice. Harvard University was blocking their Carlson petition. There were not enough votes on the City Council for it to pass. The deadline for action on the petition was fast approaching.

So some people from the RNA met with Harvard behind closed doors, and they made a deal. Some thought it was the best deal that could be had; others said it worse than no deal at all.

This deal turned out to be a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty.

The blocks along Mem Drive between Peabody Terrace and Western Ave are generally known as the Mahoney’s site. Mahoney’s is the latest in a series of garden supply businesses which have operated there, on Harvard-owned land, over the past fifty years.

The University has had its basic plan for the site since last year, but showed it to the neighbors only a few weeks ago. They want to build student housing along the northern side of the property, which is allowed under the 2003 deal, according to an Incentive Zoning Analysis by Kyu Sung Woo Architects.

A wall of student housing would rise only a few feet from the property lines of Riverside Place— a little outpost of the Black community where members of the Stead, Breedy, Hill and Ashe families have lived for generations.

These are all prominent families in the Black community. Their back yards would be cut off from the sight of the river.

For Kevin Hill, the little dead-end street is “the safest and most stable place in the world. You are transported someplace else… you forget you are in the city.”

A sort of driveway is supposed to run in front of the dormitories, separating them from the south-eastern quarter of the property. There were a lot of questions at the meeting about the driveway, which Harvard calls an “emergency road.”

Jeffrey Ashe, who works for the fire department, said that,“this is going to be a roadway, not just an emergency street.”

RNA President Adkins said,“The agreement allows for a driveway, not a thruway.”

Hill’s solution to the conflict is simple and elegant. Move two of the three dormitories planned for the north side of the site to the east side, along Western Avenue. The frontage along the Avenue is now occupied by a parking lot and blind fencing for Mahoney’s.

Instead of putting in a park at the corner of Mem Drive and Western Ave, put in a larger park stretching across the entire property from Mem Drive to Riverside Place. Hill distributed drawings showing that everyone would have sight-lines to the river under his plan.

Thirty-four years ago, Saundra Graham, with a group of residents, interrupted Harvard commencement with a bullhorn, demanding that Harvard turn this very piece of land over to the community for housing. In support of Hill’s design plan, Graham said, “We did agree there would be housing, but not in that particular location.”

Cobb Carlson—he of the Carlson Petition—also voiced support for Kevin Hill’s initiative. Another man looked at Lucey and said,“We ask that Harvard take this idea seriously.” The RNA then voted to adopt the proposal.

Hill wipes his eyes, moved by the support his ideas received.

To some degree, the process is in the hands of an Implementation Committee which has members from RNA, City agencies, and Harvard. Hill thinks“the process is questionable. I believe that there are people trying to sabotage this process,” who have trouble “understanding and respecting the Black community’s perspective, what we want and don't want.”

“Harvard is deliberately doing this to force us out… they have attacked my family and the Black community.”

And indeed, a glance at the Harvard plan makes it clear that if the first construction blocks the other abutters from the rest of the property, from then on Harvard is its own abutter for any future plans. They already own the old CELCO plant on the other side of Western Ave.

Kevin Hill says, “ My people—Black families—we make this community… “It’s only logical to move structures” rather than the families and the community. “It’s the heart of the matter,” he says. “You’re changing the character of the community… I’m saying no.”

“Since I was six I was dragged to meetings,” and learned that “the finest way of life is to struggle for the quality of life of others. That’s the heart of the matter,” he repeats.

Life has given Kevin Hill lots of practice in political struggle. “Even in my anger I had to find compromises.”

He followed his mother in adopting Buddhism, which he says “helps me to reconfigure my thought processes…. When emotion and intellect work together, that’s how I know I’m on target.”