Continuous MIT} News Service Cambridge Since 1881 OMassachusetts a/olume 107, Number 58 __j~b,~ e~s~~ll~ ~ s~%/lp[_<l~b~8lil$$b~B~~ ~a_|| ~ ~NWednesda Januaryy, 13,1988 City Council approves zoning plan for Simplex |no-WOVISOn w I MIT begins 11)year University Park development By Earl C. Yen the MIT community as well as "This was a missed opportuni- The Cambridge City Council Cambridge residents. The size of ty for the City Council to get Me MUT1 approved MIT's re-zoning peti- University Park will be compara- more housing targeted for the tion for the 27-acre Simplex ble to Kendall Square, although most needy in the community, property Monday night, ending University Park will have a said William Cavellini, spokes- 19 years of uncertainty over the greater variety of uses, Milne man for the Simplex Steering future of the Institute's undeve- said. Committee, a group of Cambrid- loped land north of the main geport residents who opposed controversial petition campus. The MIT's planned development. The MIT will now proceed with its passed by a 7-2 margin after a final plan does not require MIT plan to develop a $250 million marathon six-hour City Council to build housing for the neediest "University Park," which will in- meeting attended by over 100 tenants, including the homeless, i clude retail space, research and Cambridgeport residents, most of Cavellini argued. development offices, a hotel, whom opposed MIT's planned The zoning plan approved by open public space, and housing. development and fought the the Council includes the follow- The Simplex site is one-fifth the petition. ing items: area of MIT's main campus. The final vote disappointed o An agreement that MIT will MIT spokesman Walter L. many Cambridgeport residents construct 400 residential units, Milne said the re-zoning will fi- who had sought a Simplex devel- including 100 units of low income nally allow the Institute to opment that met more of the housing and 50 units of medium change the site from a "desolat- neighboring community's needs. income housing. The ordinance ed, deteriorated area' into a live- MIT's plan drew fire from many includes a timetable linking will benefit residents who feared that the de- u I -·------I I--------------------- ly environment that MIT's residential and non- velopment would destroy sur- residential construction; for ex- rounding neighborhoods and ample, MIT cannot build more "Tent City" protesters go to court would bring large amounts of than 1 million total square feet By Thomas T. Huang were arrested." last Fridays and the defense will outside traffic to the area. Oppo- on the site until it erects 100 As the trial for nine protesters But even if the protesters had a call its witnesses when the trial nents of the MIT plan also felt housing units. arrested at Tent City on Nov. 20 license on the land, MIT, as own- continues next Friday. that University Park was planned 0 Ceilings set at 1.9 million got underway in Cambridge Dis- er of the land, had the legal right Under administration orders to as an excessively large commer- square feet for non-residential trict Court last Friday, the pros- to revoke it, according to Assis- clear Tent City, the Campus Po- cial development, neglecting the development and 400,000 square ecution and defense heard the tant District Attorney Donna (Please turn to page 14) housing needs of the community. (Please turn to page 2) testimony of MIT Campus Police Crosby, who is prosecuting the officers and clashed over a legal case. Crosby claimed that she question: By allowing the protest- had shown through police testi- MPIT eliminates applied biology dept. ers to occupy a plot of land on mony that the defendants had ored. The four non-tenured fac- broad" area, Brown said in an the Simplex site for more than a been trespassing on MZIT proper- ulty will be considered on -an in- interview, noting that its spec- month without telling them they ty and had been on the site when dividual basis, he said. Two other trum ranges from molecular biol- would be evicted, had the Insdi- the warning of arrest was given. applied biology faculty hold their ogy and genetic engineering to tute given the protesters its 'ap- Campus Police officers - principal appointments in chemical separation techniques. parent consent" to stay on MIT called to the stand by the pros- chemical engineering. -"To -expect one department to property? ecution - maintained that they Brown told The rech that the embrace all those areas in what If so, then the protesters re- had given the protesters 20 min- principal reason for ending the might be called 'biotechnology' was its lack of focus . and to do it well ... is al- ceived a "license" on the land, utes to pack up. They said that department as a discipline. most impossible.' Brown said he defense lawyers claimed. the defendants had refused to the Graduate students presently felt that applied biology was not argued that the police leave the site, even though the They working in applied biology - a discipline in itself. but had not - protesters had been given ade- should have - some of whom have four or five The department was made "a reasonable quate warning before their ar- given the protesters years of study left - will be al- aware several times in the last few their rests. The officers also claimed amount of time' to pack up lowed to complete their pro- years of the problem of focus, site. that two of those arrested - Ste- belongings and to leave the grams, Brown said. Undergrad- Brown said. "There's been talk one of the de- ven D. Penn G and Stephen Fer- Kurt Pressman, uate courses offered by Course 20 for several years, from time to nandez, a former MIT student - fense attorneys, said during the faculty will continue to be time, about whether to keep the "This was not a civil dis- had asked their fellow protesters trial: offered next year, he said. department going." "It was cer- obedience action. The people to stay put. There was little or no discus- tainly on the mind of my prede- when they The prosecution rested its case were trying to leave David M. WatsonlThe Tech sion with department members cessor [now Provost John M. Sign near Course 20 lab area before the decision was made, Deutch '61] in this position." In years, the applied bi- Early action applications Nira; S. Desai apparently, according to several the past few By faculty has concentrated in Michael Gojer faculty members Tre Tech ology and of toxicology and bio- 0%'m IT fall `12 of applied bio- reached yesterday. Department the areas to Ml {1 perent The department had no engineering, according - Course 20 - Head Gerald N. Wogan chemical the Class of 1992 were admitted, logical sciences comment. to Brown. Brown said that bio- By Susan Seung-Eun Lee will be "phased out" over the he said. applied biology depart- chemical engineering began to re- next 18 months, according to The This year's crop of early deci- Twenty-three percent of the ment evolved from the depart- ceive less attention within the de- sion applicants was 12 percent early applicants showed interest Gene M. Brown, dean of the two faculty The an- ment of food technology, which partment when smaller than last year's, but the in majoring in electrical engineer- School of Science. their appoint- nouncement was made to the de- was formed in 1944 out of an members changed regular application process ing and computer science, com- outgrowth of the department of ments to chemical engineering. should be highly competitive, ac- pared to 30 percent of last year's partment faculty at a special said the toxicol- to biology. In 1966 the department Though Brown cording to Michael C. Behnke, pool. meeting on Jan. 6, according was excellent, the oth- the MIT News Office. became the department of ogy group director of admissions. The ad- Behnke attributed the overall nutrition and food science. er faculty were diverse in their in- missions office received 19 per- decrease in early applicants partly Brown is making efforts to terests. "It became clear that one professors in has been cent more application inquiries to a November College Board place the 12 tenured Future of department or two people did not make a positions several years this year than last, he said. test date that was a week later the department in other considered for program," he said. Three-hundred and sixty-one than last year's, resulting in some at the Institute, he said, adding hon- Applied biology is a "very (Please turn to page 12 out of 1249 early applicants for (Please turn to page 11) that all contracts will be on US Economists debate harm of defense spending _a By Niraj S. Desai living and an industrial infra- ness in the American system is Is the defense establishment a structure capable of producing the defense establishment, Melman said. And that establish- dangerous sponge, draining off needed machinery and consumer allowed to con- the human and physical resources items. ment has been that could be put to better use by Until the 1970s, the United sume an overly large share of the civilian economy? States had a first-class economy. American resources. That question provoked a heat- But it has slipped dangerously in For every $100 spent on civilian ed debate yesterday between recent years, Melman warned. fixed capital formation, the Unit- on the mili- Seymour Melman of Columbia Rather than rewarding industrial ed States spends $40 Ger- University and Harvard's efficiency, the economy has toler- tary.