By Karen Klinger

In the latest chapter in the effort to save the green centerpiece of Cambridge’s Shady Hill Square from development, residents whose houses surround the horseshoe-shaped property want to buy it with the help of Massachusetts Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds.

The homeowners have applied to the city for a $150,000 grant to help them purchase the land from a development company that holds a building permit to put up a 5,000-square-foot building in the middle of the grassy common that has served as a communal front yard for the square’s dozen semi-detached Colonial Revival stucco homes since they were built in 1915.

The project was put on hold last fall by a “stop-work” order issued by the city’s inspectional services commissioner after the abutters filed an appeal of the permit, raising questions about whether it was issued properly. The homeowners also have filed a lawsuit in state Land Court, arguing that they have easement rights to the common, blocking any development.

After two hearings, members of the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeal decided in April to put off any decision on the issue while they wait for the court’s decision. In the meantime, they urged the two sides to try to reach a settlement, which seems possible for the first time since the abutters learned of the developer’s plans last September.

At a hearing of the Cambridge Community Preservation Act Committee on June 5, John Moore, an architect and one’s the square’s residents, said representatives for Stonehouse Holding, which bought the 10,500-square-foot property for $850,000, have shown an interest in selling it, rather than continue to fight the case.

Moore said the abutters, who have formed the Shady Hill Square Association, were proposing to contribute more than 80 percent of the purchase price, with the $150,000 balance coming from historic preservation funds the city disperses under terms of the CPA, enacted by the state in 2000. He said if they are successful, they would make the property officially open to the public as a park.

In November, 2001, Cambridge voters approved a 3 percent community-wide property tax surcharge that qualified the city to receive annual state matching funds under terms of the CPA. The law requires participating communities to spend 10 percent of the money on open space, 10 percent on historic preservation and 10 percent on affordable housing, with the remaining 70 percent spent on any combination of those uses. Cambridge has decided to use the entire balance for affordable housing.

That still leaves the city with 10 percent of the funds to spend on historic preservation projects. In fiscal year 2007, officials approved 26 grants totaling $2.7 million. They ranged from $1,595 for a property on Fayerweather Street to $195,000 for an archival project involving city hall, the main library and the public works department.

Part of Norton’s Woods, Site of Earlier Preservation Effort

Residents think Shady Hill Square’s historical significance makes it a good candidate for preservation funds. Located in the city’s Agassiz neighborhood near the Harvard Divinity School, the grassy common and the homes surrounding it were built as part of a celebrated urban living design known as the Garden City movement, originating in England in the late 19th Century and meant to preserve open space while promoting a sense of community.

The square was built on Holden Street on land known as “Norton’s Woods,” once a portion of the expansive estate of Charles Eliot Norton. Originally built as housing for junior faculty at Harvard and MIT, occupants of Shady Hill homes over the years have included Harvard President James Conant, Nobel Prize-winning economist Simon Kuznets and architect Robert Kennedy.

In 1970, a remaining parcel of Norton’s Woods across Scott Street from Shady Hill Square was the scene of another fierce preservation battle when the owner, Harvard, wanted to build two apartment towers of 18 and 20 stories on it. Ultimately, the opponents prevailed and the university leased the land to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for its headquarters building.

Shady Hill Square’s houses and central green were owned by a trust until they were sold to Henriette Epstein and her late husband in 1969. They in turn sold all but their duplex house and the common to individual buyers. Over the years, Mrs. Epstein rebuffed attempts by the other abutters to buy the common, before accepting Stonehouse’s offer last spring without telling her neighbors.

She also sold her two-unit house to another developer, who has removed most of the old bushes, trees and plants around the house, destroying part of a landscape design praised in a study by the Cambridge Historical Commission, which in 2000 recommended landmark status for the square.

On a recent walk around the development, Merav Gold, who has lived there most of her life, pointed up at the elm and willow trees thought to be centuries old, which the original builder spared. Then she paused by the bare dirt, refuse pile and backhoe beside the former Epstein house. “Look at this,” she said. “If we can’t save it, this is what the whole square could look like.”

For previous Shady Hill Square stories, go to: www.cctvcambridge.org/node/2830; www.cctvcambridge.org/node/2206; and www.cctvcambridge.org/node/2086