RADCLIFFE 350 Mass 613
RADCLIFFE COLLEGE vs. CITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
350 Mass. 613
February 9, 1966 - April 20, 1966
Middlesex County
Present: SPALDING, WHITTEMORE, CUTTER, KIRK, SPIEGEL, & REARDON, JJ.
A zoning ordinance requiring a college which was a public educational institution to provide a reasonable amount of space on its land for parking of automobiles of its students, instructors,
and employees dealt with a secondary function of the college incidental to its main educational function and did not limit "the use of [its] land for . . . [its public] educational
purpose" within G. L. c. 40A, Section 2. [618]
Where it appeared in a declaratory proceeding that the number of automobile parking spaces required by a zoning ordinance to be provided by a college on its land in connection with a
new library about to be built thereon was not unreasonable for the land as a whole as then used for dormitories and other purposes, but it did not appear that a further application
of the ordinance to contemplated additional new buildings would not require an unreasonable number of parking spaces on the land, the decree should be limited to declaring the parking
space requirement of the ordinance valid as applied to the library in the then existing circumstances. [618-619]
PETITION filed in the Land Court on December 1, 1964.
The case was heard by McPartlin, J.
Andrew T. Trodden, City Solicitor, for the respondent.
Philip M. Cronin (Robert I. Hunneman with him) for the petitioner.
WHITTEMORE, J. This is a petition in the Land court pursuant to G. L. c. 185, Section 1 (j1/2), and c. 240, Section 14A,
Page 614
inserted, respectively, by Section 1 and Section 2 of St. 1934, c. 263. It describes land in Cambridge on a part of which the petitioner is building a library and seeks (1) a declaration
that art. VII, Section 2, of the Cambridge zoning ordinance, requiring provision for off street parking of automobiles, is inapplicable to the petitioner's land; and (2) an order that
the superintendent of buildings of the city shall not withhold, in reliance on art. VII, Section 2, a building permit or certificate of occupancy for the proposed library.
The petitioner is a public educational institution incorporated by St. 1894, c. 166. Worcester v. New England Inst. & New England Sch. of Accounting, Inc. 335 Mass. 486 , 489. It is
the owner of a quadrangular parcel of land (containing according to an exhibit, about 478,797 square feet