City May Donate to Shady Hill Effort

The Cambridge Community Preservation Act Committee (CPAC) recommended on Tuesday that the city contribute $175,000 to help the residents of Shady Hill Square buy a 93-year-old open space in order to restrict development on it.

The committee’s recommendation comes after a year-long conflict between Stonehouse Holdings and Shady Hill residents.

Last September, the development firm purchased the 10,500-square-foot lot, which is surrounded by seven Colonial Revival houses, with the intention of building a 5,250-square-foot single-family residence.

Since the announcement, residents have mobilized to protest the plan, arguing that the new luxury residence would destroy the historical legacy of their neighborhood, constructed during the Garden City Movement. Last November, the Cambridge Historical Commission initiated a new study to determine the historical worth of the site and issued an ordinance restricting development on the property.

The City Council is likely to pass the recommendation during its September 22 gathering. According to Karen M. Klinger, a reporter at Cambridge Community Television, the Council has passed almost every CPAC recommendation since the committee’s inception in 2002.

Shady Hill resident Hannah A. Gold said she hopes the city passes CPAC’s recommendation so that she and her neighbors can guarantee public access to the open space.

“I’m knocking on wood because I’m petrified that the deal might not make it to the end,” said Gold.

Shady Hill resident John W. Moore said that the committee’s recommendation was a positive development for his neighbors, who with the prospective subsidy expect to be within $200,000 of Stonehouse’s $1.05 million asking price, which is still being negotiated.

“Our numbers seem to be approaching each other—this was great tonight,” said Moore, who has been leading the community initiative since last fall.

Moore said that he is still waiting to hear back from Stonehouse representatives, who were absent from this week’s meeting. The development firm is owned by David T. Perry and Peter E. Madsen ’67.

Peter E. Madsen ’67, one of the two architects who own Stonehouse, said that his firm would do its best to cooperate with the city.

“We’re doing everything we can to conclude an agreement with John Moore and the abutters,” he said in a phone interview yesterday. “I really appreciate the effort the CPAC and the Historical Commission have put in to make this move work.”

Over the years, square residents have included distinguished academics, including Harvard president James B. Conant ’14 and poet Simon Kuznets, in addition to other Harvard professors.

—Staff writer Hee Kwon Seo can be reached at hkseo@fas.harvard.edu.


CORRECTION APPENDED

The Sept. 11 story, "City May Donate to Shady Hill Effort" misstated the field of Simon Kuznets. Kuznets was not a poet, but a Nobel Prize winning economist.