Charles M. Haar

Professor Emeritus of Harvard Law School, Charles M. Haar was a pioneer in land-use law whose scholarship focused on laws and institutions of city planning, urban development, and environmental issues.

He served as an adviser on urban policy during John F. Kennedy’s Presidential campaign. In 1964, he was appointed chair of Johnson’s newly formed National Task Force on the Preservation of Natural Beauty.

He was also an organizer of the first White House conference on the environment.

Haar was chosen by President Johnson to chair a commission on the formation and organization of a housing department. He was a primary architect of the Model Cities Program; an initiative developed by the Johnson administration as a response to the urban riots of the mid-1960s, and was the first assistant secretary for metropolitan development in the newly formed Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In the late 1960s, Haar helped draft important legislation, including Title IV of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (New Communities), and the Section 236 Affordable Housing Guarantee Program.

As an author, he wrote the award-winning Suburbs under Siege. Mastering Boston Harbor: Courts, Dolphins, and Imperiled Waters and chronicled his involvement in a major 1982 environmental case, City of Quincy v. Massachusetts District Commission, which eventually led to the creation of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and the successful cleanup of Boston Harbor.