The sun will set on the Harvard University empire a few milliseconds later in the future, now that the  Boston Redevelopment Authority has unanimously approved Harvard’s expansion plan in Allston for the more than 350 acres the university owns in Allston. But as usual in the Boston/Cambridge academic axis, there’s dissent.

The dissent is due in no small part to a reduction in the original high-flying plan, brought forth in 2003 when Lawrence Summers was Harvard’s president, well before the financial crisis. His plan envisioned 10 million square feet and it was portrayed as a look-forward to the next 50 years. By contrast, the plan just approved is only 1.4 million square feet and its buildout look-forward is 10 years.

The early plan was a casualty of the financial crisis which gave the university’s endowment fund a 27 percent haircut during the financial crisis, cutting the fund’s liquidity. Additionally, steel prices were spiking during this time due to increased demand from China at a time when the U.S. construction industry could ill-afford the increases. These factors led to the shelving of plans for a Health and Life Sciences Center, originally slated for groundbreaking next year. A hotel and conference center slated for Western Avenue was scaled down, and amenities such as new river crossings, a year-round garden under glass and other community augmentation, were off the table entirely.

Reports from 2009 note that Harvard’s endowment lost $1.8 billion from cash accounts which had been invested in investment vehicles during the froth before the storm. The university’s financial managers reportedly did not fully comprehend the risks of those investments. Now, Harvard has announced a $6.5 billion capital campaign to fund the expansion it’s proposed. Earlier this year, one wag on a comment board wondered how much each Harvard alum would have to donate to make the nut.

So, back to the dissent. The Harvard/Allston Task Force has objected to the scaling back of amenities, seen as bringing economic vitality and community improvement to languishing pockets of land in Allston. Additionally, plans for Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which officially became a school in 2007, were changed; now, the SEAS is partnering with venture capital firms to find ways to fund its expansion. Additionally, dissenters say that some of the uses which Harvard has already started or has plans for are Harvard-centric, back-office stuff – a mail facility for the university, a fleet management center, and a furniture storage area – the latter of which any commuter along the Mass. Pike can see that there are already plenty of.

Speaking of the Pike, the state has set the Gordian Knot that is the Allston-Brighton exit for an overhaul. The mid-1960s era exit will be straightened to alleviate congestion and to open up another 60 acres for future development, according to news reports. Estimated cost as supplied by the state: $260 million, and we think that’s awfully optimistic, but it does need to get done to benefit the wider area.

That gets to the heart of the matter. Harvard is going to its alums and venture capital firms to make up for an endowment shortfall that, if prudent investment practices had been followed, could have been lessened. Let’s try to learn from past mistakes.