By Karen Klinger

It was last fall when the battle was joined between developers and abutters over the future of bucolic Shady Hill Square in Cambridge's Agassiz neighborhood and it seems unlikely that anything will be settled before this summer, at the earliest.

In the meantime, the abutters can look out on an expanse of green free of any signs that a 5,000-square-foot building might go up in the middle of the park-like setting around which their homes are clustered.

In April, the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeal decided to continue a hearing on aspects of a building permit held by Stonehouse Holdings to put up what neighbors deride as a "McMansion" on the horseshoe-shaped square that has served as a common yard for a dozen semi-detached stucco houses since they were built in 1915.

For now, Stonehouse is prohibited from doing anything on the site by a "stop work" order issued last October by city building commissioner Ranjit Singanayagam after the abutters raised questions about the ownership of the property and the developers' legal access to it. He told Stonehouse's attorneys in February that he was not lifting the order until matters had been resolved. 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...