Residents of neighborhoods north and west of Harvard last night protested a Community Development Department (CDD) proposal that would allow the owners of large homes to rent out part of their houses as apartments.

"This would change neighborhoods that have been single-family into communities of two- and three-family houses," Hans Loeser told a city council hearing last night. "The quality of these neighborhoods ten, 15 or 20 years hence is at stake," Loeser added.

The council's ordinance committee voted to postpone a final decision on the new statute for about a month to give the CDD time to meet with city residents and modify its proposals.

Currently, owners of large homes on small lots in Cambridge are prohibited by zoning laws from renting out sections of their home. The CDD proposal would permit a single apartment within each house.

Spokesmen for Cambridge elderly and tenant groups praised the CDD plan at last night's meeting, calling it one way to alleviate the city's chronic shortage of rental housing.

But residents of the communities that would be most affected--the neighborhoods on either side of Brattle St.--said the new proposal would change the character of their areas, and create serious parking problems.

"People bought homes in these areas with the consideration that they were in a single-family neighborhood," Gladys Gifford, a neighborhood resident, said.