By Karen Klinger

For most of its nearly century-long existence in Cambridge, Lesley University has for the most part flown under the civic radar while its much larger neighbor Harvard developed a reputation as a bully boy willing to throw its weight around to get what it wanted, whether new buildings, new properties or new zoning.

But in recent years, Lesley began a rapid expansion program, raising its profile as it grew to a student body of more than 10,000, moved up Massachusetts Avenue from its main campus in the Agassiz neighborhood to establish a second campus in Porter Square and acquired the Art Institute of Boston (AIB).

In its latest move, Lesley announced its intention to establish a third Cambridge campus with a $33.5 million deal to buy seven buildings on the eight-acre campus of the Episcopal Divinity School near Harvard Square. Lesley President Joseph B. Moore said the university would like to use the EDS facilities for student housing, library services and academic space. read more...

By Karen Klinger

The bulldozers will not be moving in to dig up Shady Hill Square. Not yet, anyway.

After a contentious hearing in front of an overflow crowd on November 29, the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeal (BZA) voted to delay until February any decision about whether to revoke or reinstate a building permit issued to developers who want to build a 5,000-square-foot house on the grassy common that is the centerpiece of a celebrated urban design experiment dating back to 1915.

Located in the city's Agassiz neighborhood near the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Harvard Divinity School, the U-shaped square serves as a common yard for a dozen stucco houses that were built around it nearly a century ago as part of an idealistic urban living concept known as the Garden City movement.

For generations, residents of the square and nearby neighbors have treated it as a public space, using it for picnics, recreation, parties and even a wedding. They knew the land was privately owned, but assumed it could not be built on, especially since the city did not collect property taxes on it for more than a quarter-century. read more...

In a corner of Cambridge near the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the Agassiz neighborhood, Shady Hill Square is a bucolic green that residents regard as a treasured public space and a rare example of a more than century-old urban planning concept known as the "Garden City" movement.

But the square has new owners who say the property--which has remained open land since houses were built in 1915 around its horseshoe shape--never was intended to remain undeveloped in perpetuity. They say they have an absolute right to build a planned 5,000-square-foot home on it that nearby residents have derided as an enormous "McMansion" that would destroy not only the green space, but the ambience of the immediate community.

Now, the Cambridge Historical Commission has stepped into the fray by voting at a hearing on November 1 to approve a study that will suspend building for a year while staff members compile a report on whether the commission--and ultimately the city council--should approve landmark status for the property that would permanently block its development. read more...