'Cliffe Told To Construct Parking Area

Radcliffe will have to bow to the Cambridge zoning ordinance and find 90 off-street parking spaces for the new Hilles Library, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

But the 'Cliffe--which told the Court Cambridge's ruling might force it to park cars on the Quad or the Fourth House site--has now found a way to save them.

Philip M. Cronin '53, a Radcliffe attorney, said yesterday that most of the parking spaces would probably be located on Observatory Hill, across from the library, and on the sites of two nearby apartment houses the 'Cliffe has just purchased.

RadCliffe acquired an option on a two acre tract on Observatory Hill last month in an exchange of land with Harvard.

The Court also ruled that Cambridge's demand for several hundred parking spaces near the Fourth House was "unreasonable" since very few residents of the Fourth House will own cars -- It called on city officials to reduce the requirement or waive it completely.

Cronin said Radcliffe will request that the 90 parking spaces it will provide for the library serve for the Fourth House also.

He explained that 90 spaces is about the limit Radcliffe can provide by parking cars on a small area around the Library and on newly-purchased land nearby. Much of the new land is needed for other purposes--for example, the Observatory tract is reportedly being considered for a new dormitory.

Cambridge insists on a large number of additional spaces, the case will probably return to the courts, he said -- Radcliffe would again be faced with the problem of using the Quad or the Fourth House site to fit them in.

been waged since last spring, when

The battle over parking spaces has Cambridge officials told Radcliffe they would not exempt the Library or the adjacent Fourth House from zoning requirements. The ordinance calls for one more parking space for every 1000 square feet of buildings, although the space can be several blocks away.

Radcliffe argued that, as an education-institution, it should be exempt from the ordinance -- and won its case in a lower court last July. The city promptly appealed.

The Supreme Court's ruling will force all Massachusetts colleges to comply with local parking requirements -- unless they can prove that the parking spaces would have very little use.