Panel keeps Highland Ave house preferably preserved

Other Committee · Meeting of October 20, 2026

SOMERVILLE — The Somerville Historic Preservation Commission voted 4-0 to find a four-unit house at 333 Highland Avenue preferably preserved, blocking a roof and addition plan from proceeding without a city design agreement. Owner Fan Wang had asked the commission to find the property not preferably preserved, arguing the project's hip-to-gable roof swap matched roughly 20 neighboring gable roofs and had already cleared a Board of Zoning Appeals special permit on September 30. Vice Chair Robin Kelly said the shallow proposed gable "doesn't really match any of the other gables" on the street, while Chair Eric Parks said the preferably-preserved finding gives the commission "a mechanism for working forward" on a memorandum of agreement rather than blocking the project outright.

The same meeting approved window replacements at 23 Chester Street and a deck rebuild at 15 Adams Street, and found a roughly 150-year-old carriage barn at 65 Derby Street historically significant, all by 4-0 votes.

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Source: the Other Committee meeting of October 20, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript. It was corrected where it differed.