Residents Try to Head Off Hospital Expansion

Neighbors angered at the plans of Youville Hospital officials to construct two new buildings will take their case to the Cambridge City Council Monday night.

The neighbors, citing high costs and inconvenience by construction, will ask the Council to recommend that the state Board of Public Health postpone plans for construction on the Cambridge St. site, located six blocks from the Yard.

"Youville may be a saint, but it has a responsibility to its neighbors," Andrew M. Fischer, one of the neighbors who will go before the council Monday night, said Construction of the two four-story buildings which the hospital officials said are necessary to increase patient privacy and safety--would be "like putting the big hole in Harvard Square right in our front yards," Fischer said.

The public health board will make a first decision, board spokesman said yesterday. The city council can only offer an advisory opinion on the plan, and not block its implementation, the spokesman added.

"I am not opposed to the construction project, but there is something to the claim that it is a waste of money." David Sullivan, the city councilor who lives nearest the teaching hospital, said yesterday. "It's also my job to make sure the neighborhood is protected from the problems of construction," Sullivan added.